


The Places You're Not Supposed to Visit

by PrimeanScribe



Category: Elder Scrolls
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-05
Updated: 2021-02-23
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:07:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 31,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26834188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrimeanScribe/pseuds/PrimeanScribe





	1. Chapter I

I

Have you ever walked through a quiet set of rooms and wondered why you seemingly took longer than usual to get out of that space? Did you ever feel lost as you traversed an empty hallway albeit you could see its end? Have you ever come upon a house late at night and felt as if something wasn't quite right only for that emotion to fade away after you had a look around? Or perhaps you got the impression of being weirdly "trapped" in a vacant alleyway. If so, this is no mere coincidence. This is exactly what happened.

Maybe you remember a distinct noise when you think of situations such as these. Something unique and bizarre, yet barely audible. A peculiar sound in the background that creeps inside the back of your head and works on an almost instinctive, primal level to instill a sense of considerable discomfort that is seldom felt. It is not unusual to feel somber at such reminiscence. Indeed, an uneasiness is highly likely when a memory like this occurs. Not unlike a nightmare that takes place when you sleep.

When it happens it is truly hard to notice for the event horizons of the different layers of reality are blending together seamlessly and, from time to time, we can experience this in the world. It is most notable in empty areas for the magickal energy and presence of vivid vitality are significantly lower than, say, on a bustling marketplace or a raging battlefield. A key ingredient is the absence of life, as life grants stability. Without it, the layers will twist and turn randomly. And whenever it happens to you it is of the importance not to panic should you notice it. Because if you do, you might lose yourself in a place you weren't supposed to visit.

My name is Robert Gautier, of the Bretic Gautier lineage, alchemist, potion brewer and poison mixer by trade and sole scholar of what I've come to call the Arcana Obscuris, the studies pertaining to queer and strange, magickal phenomena as well as the deepening of our understanding thereof in an effort to make this knowledge usable to future generations. While my family name holds no significance in other provinces, it is well recognised on the streets of North Point in High Rock for my noble bloodline largely consists of beneficiaries to the temples, shrines and chapels to the Divines. Devout and wealthy, they saw their chance to provide blessings to the meek and destitute by means of generous donations of septims towards the local clergy, enabling them to, in turn, provide warm meals and cosy beds to those who were too indigent to afford this luxury.

I, however, saw that my calling lay elsewhere. Early in life I discovered my natural talent for magic. This is nothing out of the ordinary in High Rock, of course. But apart from my inherited, magickal acumen I also harboured a peculiar, mental acuity as was noted by my grandfather as an "unusual sharpness of the eyes". When I began to read books when others of similar age would still learn how to spell properly, my family would seize this opportunity and send me to Agea Relle, more commonly known as the Crypt of Hearts.

In the past a place of learning, but several calamities left the crypt in a sorry state. That was until a knightly order, The Order of the Crypt, took up residence and cleansed the grounds under an oath to protect the mausoleum from evil as well the hearts of men from corruption. 

In the fourth Era, after the Dragon Crisis of Skyrim, that also had its effect on the Crypt as one of its entrances lies inside Skyrim's borders, was resolved, the Order of the Crypt decided it was time to repurpose the giant, antediluvian network of caves, tunnels, staircases and overground towers into a magickal institute once more. Under the guidance of famous Knight Captain Pierre du Bois, himself an excellent sorcerer and destruction mage who had once led the assault on the dragons during the crisis a few years prior to defend the Crypt from the fearsome Dov, the knights of the order sought out the help of scholars, architects and field workers and granted them great compensation to refurbish the area and make it accessible to the would-be wizards, witches and mages of High Rock and Skyrim. And I was one of them.

However, while the newly founded Institute of the Water's Wisdom, referring to the first ever conceived name, Agea Relle, was now home to many a scholar under the protection of the knights who made it their home long ago, there would still exist parts of the caverns on the deepest levels of the structure that were off-limits. The latent threat of evil that had yet to be vanquished lingered in and around these parts and soldiers were sent there to deal with what creatures still lurked in the shadows. Some of whom never returned. And yet, my adventurous mind would at some point lead me into the darkest nooks. I was always a scholar at heart, after all.

I have spent many years of my life in that institution and I pride myself on knowing most of its convoluted layout better than the back of my own hand. Even though I was still lacking the knowledge of its deepest parts for none were permitted entry past a certain depth. At one point I even suspected that there lay secrets in those depths, hidden away from prying eyes to prevent theft and unauthorised acquisition of power. I didn't know that I was wrong. 

When I entered adolescence I began to really take note of the true extent of the subterranean spaces below. The headmaster however, an eccentric Dunmer by the name of Alven Flendel, placed certain restrictions on where we may or may not go and posted armed guards along the entrances to the aforementioned deeper levels of the structure. 

In retrospect it would probably have been wiser to listen to the more experienced mages of the Institute. But if I did, would I have made these awe-inspiring discoveries? I suppose not. 

II

"Liminal" is a term used to refer to bordering areas of transit, so to speak. In arcane terms, it usually refers to the magickal border between Mundus and Oblivion that exists here on Nirn. The volume titled "Liminal Bridges" by Camilonwe of Alinor, a brilliant Altmer tutor whom I met during the Conference of Theoretical and Applied Arcane Technologies years later, dwells on this subject and goes on to explain the exact processes and delicate methodologies with which a sigil stone, a Daedric artifact of staggering might that is a conductor for interdimensional travel, is created and how it is used. With it, a portal to Oblivion can be opened and, depending on its power, and that of its wielder, can be held open for longer or shorter periods of time, albeit the process to do it is quite complicated and involves commerce with a Daedric prince, the construction of a dedicated chamber and some knowledge of conjurational invocations.

Some theories state that the Mundus is not only surrounded but also engulfed by and saturated with Oblivion and its energies. "Liminal Bridges" proves this as it doesn't say that there are areas in and around Tamriel from which a portal to a specific part of Oblivion couldn't be opened. In this sense, one could get the impression that both dimensions  _ overlap.  _ In places, at least. What makes all of this so significant to me will become apparent later in this report. What's important right now is that "Liminal Bridges" was the first book I immersed myself in during my intense magickal studies at the Institute. The knowledge contained therein not only shaped the general wisdom I hungered to procure. It also shaped the path whither I would tread to attain such wisdom.

As one might probably at this point suspect, I thoroughly disrespected the laws and rules of the Institute as imposed by Headmaster Flendel and snuck out of my living quarters late at night. I had read much about the different planes of existence, the dimensions and magickal theory of four-dimensional spaces contained in arcane formulæ that nobody knew how to use. In the spirit of discovery, I fancied that there might lie a great secret at the bottom of this barrel that was the lowest level of the age old catacombs that were said to still be haunted by ghastly terrors. 

Naïve as I was, I didn't believe a word of this. No, I made it my mission to go there - with or without permission. So I watched as the last sliver of moonlight from the celestial crescent was swallowed by the clouds from the window of my chamber in one of the many towers that occupied this obscure plot of land. When the darkness fell I cast a quick invisibility spell and shuffled out of the tower, down the spiralling staircase and towards the malodorous entombments that were so fabled and myth-enshrouded. 

The pitch blackness helped me greatly in retaining my inconspicuousness forwhy the illusory spell that I used to conceal my presence was weak and I could see myself being translucent rather than completely hidden whenever I gazed down to view my hands and reaffirm that the spell was still active.

After several minutes of skulking amidst the shadows I could finally see the guards that have been posted at one of the entrances to the forbidden parts of Water's Wisdom. I timed my arrival expertly as I witnessed the shift changeover. The torches illuminated the immediate area but a looming void behind them would give me enough cover so that I could slip by unnoticed. I went for it as soon as the changeover took place. All was fine until I heard a voice from behind.

"What was that?"

Footsteps in my direction. I struggled to control my breath but was paralysed at the same time. I couldn't move and only hoped that my spell wouldn't suddenly wear off. 

"Hmpf. Must have been the wind", the guard, noticeably annoyed, then proclaimed as I could hear the armoured boots clatter away from me. My still furiously pumping heart commanded me to move into the unknown to get away from the threat of discovery. Mere seconds thereafter, the invisibility wore off but I was out of line of sight. I breathed a deep sigh of relief. I made it past the threshold at last.  _ Now is the time to explore  _ I thought to myself with a broad smile on my face. And deeper past the threshold I went.

Now, it is important to note that one should bear an understanding of the general concept of liminal bridges and of its implications as well as the implications of the hypotheses that have been constructed around the arcane science of this subject matter in order to grasp the full extent of the experience I will relay to you shortly. As it is, planes of existence can be accessed by advanced, arcane means and for some reason only by going through a complicated process. However, what follows is of a similar nature but at its core, it is an anomaly of a most curious kind that, given the research, could perhaps be harnessed if handled correctly. 

The most immediately perceptible feature of this new area was its eerie vacancy and the total lack of light sources. No torches, magickal stones or gems or even glowing wisps could be found in this place. And yet, the clear marks of preceding use by our collective forefathers were distinctly visible after my eyes had adjusted to the darkness. 

I conjured up a little orb of light to keep me company and bathe me in radiance. What good was spelunking without vision, after all? In its lustre I beheld what looked like ruins of a bygone Era and the several facets of its various purposes were tantalising, fascinating. The murals on the walls that depicted arcane symbols that I recognised as Altmeri and Dwemeri script from the books I've plowed through stood in stark contrast to the crumbling sarcophagi embedded into these same walls. Little spires of chiseled stone were aligned around the sarcophagi in decorative fashion and the individual stone caskets were separated by beautiful buttresses of female appearance that held books, talismans or phials in their hands.

To an unsuspecting onlooker, this alien mixture of different, architectural designs, motifs and areas of use will look confusing. In fact, if I didn't know better I would have taken this chamber for a necromancer's lair. Old desks and bookshelves were situated opposite of urns of various shapes and sizes, bones and dust strewn about them haphazardly and gently getting carried away by a slight breeze that was prominent inside these cavernous expanses. The silent flutter of leftover papers echoed throughout the dank halls and the smell of death permeated every aspect of my surroundings. I caught myself flinching at some of the broken lids of the last resting places of some of the dead. I had never seen a corpse before, after all. Much less a skeleton.

I was utterly filled with awe and delight following this grand discovery on my part. Not a second did I waste on any worries or concerns. Instead I examined each pertan of this enclosed space fastidiously to not miss any important details. Little engravings over some dusty tables that were too worn to make out probably served to designate each arrangement of furniture a specific use. Cabinets and drawers filled with pages that fell to dust as I opened the creaking containers told of incredible, magickal developments I will most likely never get to witness. And above all else there loomed this sense of timeless antiquity that saturated the stale air with an unmistakable importance that I can but scarcely describe.

My zealous research led me ever deeper into the unknown. Before I knew it I found myself in an unfamiliar maze of rooms, corridors and winding hallways. For every secret uncovered there were three new, previously unseen rooms until I lost my path completely and struggled to remember whence I came. In the beginning I told myself that it didn't matter as I would most likely loop back in the end. An illusion of comfort I was giving myself all too willingly. The truth was that all sense of direction forsook me and disorientation took its place instead. I suppose one could argue that this little adventure of mine spiralled out of control. It wasn't long before gnawing hunger and fatigue would claim their due.

Confused, I wandered aimlessly in what felt like an infinitely expanding set of rooms, halls and chambers that appeared to never truly terminate in one direction. But perhaps I was just walking in circles without me noticing it. In time, however, an unprecedented noise made sure I forgot my worries for the moment as a sense of dread began to fill my heart. Around a corner, just a few meters away, I espied a few greyish, famished creatures that looked uncannily humanoid overall but were so very different once I took a closer look.

They were naked, grey with dark hands and feet. They sported talons instead of fingers and their mouth was horribly twisted into a circular shape underneath black eyes of what was otherwise a sterile face. No hair covered their thin skin that was partly transparent to allow me to spot a few here and there.

I was paralysed in shock at these alien creatures. Somewhere in the back of my mind there were stowed-away memories of these things as I could tell that they were Daedric in nature. Just what they were I failed to put my finger on. 

In a moment of terror their inhuman faces turned towards me and an ear-splitting screech announced their awareness of my presence. Judging from the moving teeth that were arranged around the outer and various inner rings of the cylindrical tube that were their mouths I instinctively fancied that they sought to relinquish their ravenous state of body by ways of dining on my flesh or blood.

The spell of paralysis was broken and I turned to run away. The things behind me gave chase and my haste would lead me even deeper into this endless, cavernous maze. 

I could hear their naked feet as they scurried along on the stone floor, relentlessly engaged in pursuit. For all I knew, I could have been their only prey in days, if not weeks or months. Intermingled with these noises was the reverberating sound of my boots as they kicked away the dust and dirt that covered a fair bit of the intricate, tiled surface I had walked on since I snuck past the guards. My cumbersome breathing lent credence to my wimpy endurance and bodily constitution. 

My lungs burned, my sides were in pain. I groaned as I fell to the floor after what felt like an eternity of running away. But to my surprise, as I lay there without any ability to defend myself, fused with the floor, the horrible feet that so eagerly pursued me seemed to vanish. Their noise ceased and after a moment of caution I presumed the threat gone. I could breathe soundly again and I was determined to make my way back to the surface. 

In time, I noticed a few curious developments, however. For one, the already stale air cooled off considerably as soon as the creatures stopped chasing me. I attributed this to the deep layer that I was situated in but I would soon find that, even after moving elsewhere, that this temperature remained. My forehead wrinkled as I saw that the dust, that had been afore carried by the continuously flowing air current, settled. Only my feet moved it around whenever my steps connected to the ground. 

The sense of something being off grew more prevalent as I involuntarily focused my mind on my footsteps. I had always done this whenever my mind got upset or whenever I lost my way. But it turned out to do more harm than good in this instance.

It became oppressively apparent that the echo that my feet had hitherto produced was missing. So was the sound of wind, the creaking of old, wooden constructs. I realised that I found myself in total silence. In an  _ unnatural  _ silence that gave off the impression of weighing heavily on my shoulders. Nothing moved, nothing made any noise. All was still and lifeless. I felt lost before, but the all-consuming sound of perfect stillness droned out my senses and an increasing sentiment of indescribable urgency surfaced shortly thereafter. For some reason I just  _ had  _ to get out. Being in this space didn't feel right. My intuition clearly told me that I was not supposed to be there. Wherever "there" was.

After seeing what looked like the same mural over and over as I tried to find an exit out of this convoluted set of corridors with this urn that had a small crack in its side from which poured bone dust onto the floor, after viewing the same, old table with exactly three scratch marks on its left most corner again and again, I figured that I was walking in circles. Clearly I did. But as much as I tried to only move forward, to never turn a corner, somehow I would always end up in the same room with that same mural, that same urn and that same table. 

After what felt like hours I witnessed a first change when I traversed a narrow passage that connected two different sets of rooms. A breath of fresh air at last. But still, the further I went the more  _ off  _ all of it appeared to me.

It was there that I took note of a  _ presence _ in my vicinity. The overpowering silence was finally broken by… something. There were no footsteps or any recognisable noise that could have identified its source as being of animal, human or merish origin. It was as if sin was given a voice, for the wholly alien music that reverberated off the walls  _ talked _ to me in a strange language I never heard before. It whispered things that I somehow understood on the most basic level. It whispered of impending disaster and a festering fear unlike any other seized me, held me in its ethereal grasp of otherworldly terror.

I was unable to see it, but some  _ entity _ made its way to where I stood. I can't tell why or how but I knew that it could feel me as I could feel it. And it came for me. To do what, I was uncertain. I didn't have any guesses as to its motives and the ultimate goal it tried to achieve. If it even had any goals in the first place. But it made me uncomfortable enough to promote immediate flight on my part. I started running, running for my life, and I didn't even know what I was running  _ from. _ I cast a quick gaze behind to see an empty, impenetrable, black void encroaching, consuming the world around it. My bewildered eyes widened and my furiously beating heart drove me to go beyond my limits and keep on running.

The apparent sentience of the black mist frightened me to a soul crushing degree and my ability to formulate clearly articulated thoughts in my mind faded away. I knew only the burning of my feet and legs, the searing pain in my chest and the pulsating arteries in my throat. 

I looked behind me one last time and saw that formless menace devour everything. To my surprise, when I looked forward again, I saw torches, posted guards and the entrance I snuck through once more as it all appeared out of nowhere, right before my eyes, and whatever that  _ thing _ was dissipated ad hoc. 

I couldn't stop nor control my momentum and crashed into the armoured guards at full speed, bringing them down with me. And as the three of us slid through the dust on the stone floor, a thoroughly angered soldier looked me right in my unsuspecting eyes. I was in trouble.

III

"What, by the House of Troubles, were you doing down there? I've restricted access to the lower levels for a reason!"

This was the first thing Headmaster Flendel said to me after the knights of the Order would bring me into his quarters in the highest tower of the magnificent architecture. Ever since the Order of the Crypt worked closely together with the mages, they became their guards, in a sense. The Institute was big enough to accommodate for the living space of over three hundred people and was more like a small town than a regular arcane university. And over time, the Headmaster Alven Flendel became its president while the knights of the Order became the Institute's own, private militia and law enforcement agency. And Flendel's word was the law. 

As such, when I got seated on the wooden chair that stood opposite his great desk behind which he was sitting rather comfortably, I spoke to the supreme authority inside those halls. 

His long, flowing robes of blue silk accentuated his silver hair that rested on the shoulders. The belt that held the mer's grimoire securely fastened to his right hip was of ornamental, Dunmeri design, outfitted with several, Daedric runes and magickal seals along its edges. His gloved hands, an intricate embroidery upon their backs, pressed down on the desk as he pushed himself up to look down at me with his crimson irises that were so unlike those of man. 

"What were you doing down there anyway? The guards reported that you were in a hurry and told me of your horrified expression. Did you see anything we ought to know of?"

I began speaking as prompted and told him of my harrowing experience in as much detail as I could remember at the time. How I snuck in and suddenly ended up being chased by strange creatures (which were apparently called "hungers" as Flendel would educate me) and how they inexplicably vanished in favour of a much greater horror. I relayed to him my journey and what I discovered, but also how I was at one point trapped and pursued by  _ something.  _

For the length of my report, Flendel would stand there in quiet acknowledgement of my tale. He would occasionally nod and seemed to, at times, be absorbed in thought when I mentioned specific things like the repetition of certain spaces, the sudden lack of sound or environmental response to my presence or the way I resurfaced rather abruptly before I ran into the armed guards.

He tapped his bearded chin gently as he attempted to fit the loosely connected pieces of my experience together to form a coherent account that could be worked with. And although he did fail, he was too preoccupied with contemplating the events I had gotten myself into to enforce any kind of punishment greater than an admonishing finger and an appeal to the cautionary tale that was my story. To warn me of the dangers that crept in the darkest nooks and corners of this world. Then, he let me off and ordered the knights outside to escort me to my quarters. 

When the knights shut the heavy, wooden door behind me, I found myself in my study once more. A soothing sensation swept over me to behold familiar grounds. My personal notes, collection of books and alchemical laboratory were all situated neatly inside the small space I called home for the duration of my stay at Water's Wisdom. 

As worn out and exhausted as I was from my most recent adventure, I couldn't stop thinking about what happened. Logic guided me towards knowing that it was completely impossible to continuously happen upon the exact same, environmental features although moving down a straight corridor. Or, in other words: To logically explain what I saw it would have been necessary for me to run in circles. But I did not.

Instead, the same chamber, or set of chambers, would repeat. Over and over. Until something broke this curious spell and let me escape. Curiosity kept me wide awake and I began to search for clues in several different volumes and scientific pamphlets, looking for an answer to the question of what exactly happened to me. After perusal of several specimens I was about to give in to my growing fatigue when a book, well known to me, emerged from underneath the wild pile of scriptures that I had been working my way through. "Liminal Bridges".

The title alone told me everything I needed to know to understand the basics of what took place in those eerie depths. At some point during my exploration I must have somehow slipped through the cracks of space and ended up in some form of alternate reality or pocket dimension. At least this is what I believed. This explained how the location I was in managed to trap me in the way it did and the way I suddenly appeared before the guards when I did. I was absolutely certain of this. Just on what laws it operated I could not, for the life of me, tell. 

Theoretical and applied arcane sciences teach us that, in order to cross any trans-dimensional threshold, a staggering amount of effort is required to even construct a liminal bridge, let alone cross the gaps between dimensions safely and arrive at the intended destination alive, well and in one piece. However, notwithstanding the colossal prerequisites to travel in betwixt planes of existence, I seemed to have  _ smoothly slithered  _ into a foreign space. This should have been impossible. 

That same night I already made copious amounts of notes on the subject and filled page after page with theories, speculation, equations and arcane diagrams in an effort to get to the bottom of a phenomenon that defied the laws of magic so bluntly. 

Before long, my consciousness phased in and out and I caught myself occasionally dozing off in the middle of a paragraph I intended to write. I had grown extraordinarily tired and, well, needed some rest. A good night's sleep should bring my mind back on track. But as I went to bed, one resolution etched itself into my heart: I had to go down there again. I had experiments to conduct.

The next day I was awoken by the commotion from outside the door to my personal living space. A peek through the keyhole revealed that groups of experienced mages and wizards, accompanied by armed escorts composed of the knights of the Order, traversed the halls and staircases. Among them I heard the voice of Headmaster Flendel shouting muffled commands at his underlings. But a few words I could make out, all of which pointed me towards the fact that my recent "accident" in the depths gave reason to investigate these subterranean spaces. 

I poked my head out of the door frame to observe the disordered chaos of robes, books and lights that flew by. My gaze wasn't focused yet, so early in the morning, and I saw mostly smears and smudges of movement before my eyes finally regained their proper sight. Of course I had to follow the mass of mages to their destination. I put on clothes, gathered a few items of importance and made my way to the depths once more. This time, concealed within a congregation of wizards so there was no need of sneaking about. 

Torches and magickal orbs of light guided my way. I finally had a chance to explore the areas below under the protection of the teachers and knights so long as no one realised that I probably shouldn't have been there.

While all the other mages and knights poured into the dank depths of the catacombs and the labyrinthine corridors I tried to find yet another one of those anomalies from a day before. And while I waited for something to happen to me I scanned my surroundings thoroughly and dived back into this antique realm of forgotten magic. But in the end, I was not graced with such disturbances another time.

Instead I heard the clank of metal and the visceral cries of fierce warriors who partook in gruesome combat against the monsters that still dwelt within the abysses of what was once Agea Relle. The sounds of war, the shrieks of beasts. Soon enough, the band of explorers felt overwhelmed by the looming creatures that stalked the shadows and Headmaster Flendel beckoned them to retreat.

I, however, saw my chance and stayed behind. I knew of the atrocities that I may or may not cross paths with. But I had come prepared with clever means of evasion. Certain, alchemical mixtures designed to obscure one's presence, a few distracting bundles of foul herbs emitting mephitic vapours as well as a silver dagger coated with a potent, paralyzing poison as a last resort defence should the worst come to pass.

Once more should I stalk the underground structures and maze like hallways, albeit with a care I had not exhibited before. I knew that I trod on hazardous grounds and any misstep could lead to my demise or, at the very least, to grievous injury. As prepared as I was for hiding and running, I was problematically ill equipped to appropriately handle the beasts of these caverns. I did possess some knowledge of destruction spells but I was in doubt in regards to their effectiveness against larger hordes of adversaries. Simple fireballs and ice needles were barely enough to defend oneself against the common brigand or thief, much less the undead or even the dæmoniac Daedra. 

The majority of the arcane knowledge within my repertoire was of highly theoretical nature and concerned itself with dimensions and travel betwixt them, with hypotheses on the nature of magicka and the interior of soul gems or how magicka was flowing along the horizontal, diagonal and vertical axis in a three-dimensional space and how it would, in theory, be possible to observe its flow into higher dimensions. In short, my field of expertise was, and still is, not combat oriented. It should come as no surprise, then, that I preferred to evade potential foes as much as possible. My small library of offensive spells and that poisoned dagger were more peace of mind than anything.

And yet, I entered the serene entombments with bravery in my heart. I imagined I knew what I was getting myself into, after all.

While I waited for something to happen I recorded as many oddities and salient features of the vast array of possible objects of adoration as I could. Every now and then I had to hide from vicious creatures and temporarily pause exploration. Much of what I found would later help me understand the inner workings of the strange phenomenon I was about to encounter that afternoon, if much later. Suffice it to say that I stumbled upon various remnants of magickal stones, gems and crystals amidst the terrifying sarcophagi of those that dwelt here before. I also found singular growths atop some, but not all, graves that possessed some inherent luminosity which led me to believe that some remnants of a powerful kind of magic must still linger. 

By the time I finalized my notes on the exact composition of a glowing, crystalline shard my stomach began churning and I laid down the specimen to grab some of my provisions that I had wisely brought along. I began biting into a grilled venison chop and commenced chewing. The meat was succulent, tasty overall and appeared to have just the right amount of salt poured over it. 

Halfway through that piece of meat, however, I noted a striking difference in flavour. A second ago I could taste every angaid of flesh as the individual strands separated on my tongue. But shortly after, all flavour vanished, the other half of the venison completely devoid of it. As if my taste buds had stopped working. Then, it got cold, and I listened closely.

_ Nothing.  _

It had happened again. 

I scanned my surroundings and found that the glow from the crystal shard had faded. What notes I still had on me were curiously illegible. It was weird, really. I looked at the papers but the writing was alien. I always felt that I could almost recognise what was written but not quite. The resulting ambiguity disturbed me greatly and I opted to stash away my recordings for the time being.

I now consciously knew that I was in a different place than I had been a few seconds ago. Again I had slipped into what I at the time used to call an "intermediate space pocket" for I theorized that such a place bridged some gap between one instance of a place and another. Simply put, I believed that at least two variants of the same, worldly space existed at the same time in any given location and that there was an intermediate space that connected both to form one, coherent space that we could call part of our reality. Granted, I realised some time later that this was utter nonsense. 

Perhaps the most interesting circumstance was that the "symptoms" of this spatial anomaly were the same as before. The repetition in events is a sign of a pattern that, if true, will enable me to, at length, at least semi-reliably reproduce this effect. However, I still had no idea as to its creation. 

In my head, there was this notion of somber solitude in conjunction with a prescience of faded memories of the Crypt of Hearts and its depths. Call it a premonition if you will but I was overcome with a sort of presentiment towards the idea that, perhaps, the history of the place had a thing or two to do with what was happening. 

In the bleak stillness of this otherworldly, yet strangely nostalgic space I could sometimes feel a trickling sensation on my skin. Other times I saw the objects around me in a different light with bright, blue-ish outlines. And there was this  _ music _ . I can not place it. It was beautiful and terrifying. Full of life and yet empty as the abyss my soul seemed to dangle over as I traversed the dead corridors. It wasn't music in the traditional sense, mind you. It was, and continues to be, indescribable with the words of mortals. The only sound that my human organs can produce with which I could adequately express this thought is… Fthnsthul.

This is the only thing that came to mind. And as it did, it did so intuitively. As if it had always existed in my brain, waiting to be drawn out by the music that so naturally resonates with it as a bell does with its chime. 

I quickly grabbed my foreign-looking notes and scribbled the word down under the existing paragraphs as it came to me.  _ Fthnsthul. _

But it sounded differently than one may think when viewing this transcript. It was much more like a deep, long, vibrating drone than a real voice or melody. 

I proceeded to put away the jumbled glyphs that were my words in another dimension and began to wander consciously through this underground wasteland of tunnels and malign brickwork. For reasons unbeknownst to me at the time, the strange music got louder the more elderly I studied these semi-familiar structures. The more fastidious I examined each bit, the louder and faster it became. 

It eventually climaxed when before me, the black mist from the night before materialised itself out of thin air. All of a sudden it struck me:  _ This was the source of the noise. _

The tantalising thing remained at about forty pertans of distance. I tried to glimpse a form, a shape, anything that could describe it beyond being a formless nothing but the harder I looked the more anxious I got. An unrelenting repulsion inhibited my senses and permitted no further exposure to such disturbing visuals. 

_ It  _ seemed to be in constant flux. If there was any solid matter at all it built itself up and immediately broke down again to give the impression of an undulating, black mass. But I could very clearly feel how it observed me. How it sensed each and every heartbeat that emanated from my chest. I opened my heavy lids once more to take a last look at the  _ thing _ . I fancied I glimpsed an eye of some capacity but my frayed nerves could take it no longer and the world around me diluted into melting scraps of coarse fabric. 

IV

I drifted softly through an endless sea of thick fluid. My limbs outstretched, I felt every ounce of the substance flow in betwixt my fingers. I drifted in this viscous void. And a void it was, for I saw nothing at all. I attempted to speak but I was mute. Moving my body turned out to be exceptionally difficult in this stuff but I managed to twist and turn ever so slightly to observe the nothingness from a few different angles. I closed my eyes and had the sudden urge to dream of my home whence I had left behind in favour of research. I flung open my eyelids again as I felt something seize my leg. A brutal tugging ripped me right out of the numbing blackness. 

When I came to, I found myself in my bed. Drenched in sweat, exhausted beyond previously established limits.  _ What happened to me?  _ This was the only question that presently occupied my mind. My gaze wandered about the room where I spotted two figures. I blinked a few times to make the blurriness of my vision disappear. As the image became clearer, I saw that Headmaster Flendel and an unknown female of probably Nordic origin stood next to my bed.

"Mr. Gautier". The harsh voice of the Headmaster chastisingly greeted me. "I understand Sila here has found you lying unconscious on the stairs that lead to the depths. I will not assume anything that has to do with your undertakings. However…".

He motioned the Nordic woman, whose name evidently was Sila, to retrieve something. A set of notes that looked very acquainted. Aside from a small detail.

"Among your belongings that were strewn about the staircase, she found a paper that contains this".

Sila held up my notes and I knew without guessing what Flendel was referring to. Below my notes there was a single string of wholly unrecognisable glyphs that I had never seen before.

"Can you tell me what this is?".

His inquiry sounded more pressing now. I had some recollection of scribbling a single word where those glyphs now were. And in my mind, I pieced together what it was that I wrote there. I had some trouble remembering its exact sound when pronounced but seemed to be able to distinctly recall that the entirety of my notes used to look like this when that hungering space ensnared my body and spirit.

A second of silence followed my unexpected revelation. Mouths agape, the two of them stared at me in confusion. 

"What… did you just say?". What did I say? What  _ did  _ I say? Even now I have a hard time remembering. Fthnsthul. A word, not intended to be spoken by mortals. But where it came from puzzled me as much as how the anomaly worked that I had been researching. 

I had no real explanation for my sudden ability to pronounce foreign tongues that were otherwise unknown to me. 

"I'm afraid your notes have to be confiscated. I am truly sorry for your lost work, however.", Flendel callously stated before taking the paper away. "We will examine this… word more thoroughly. In the meantime", he paused and took a deep breath, "Don't go scrounging around in those depths anymore. There might not always be someone there to save you".

The following weeks I kept away from the depths of the Institute and instead focused on learning more about theoretical concepts and arcane techniques as well as improve my alchemical skills in ways that would permit me to stay hidden for extended periods of time, even in broad daylight. But even though I was determined to let the matter rest, I couldn't. During every magic lesson my thoughts would drift away. During breaks I would catch myself imagining how my floating in between spaces might have looked from the outside. Even as I slept did I dream of the word, the thing, the place.

Finally, resigned to the lure of discovery, I gathered all my old notes together and tried to make sense of them. I was sure that I had to do more testing in the future but I restrained myself for as long as I would still partake in the studies at Water's Wisdom. I already ran the risk of getting expelled by repeatedly disobeying the Headmaster. I didn't want to press my luck even further.

Instead, I poured my attention into the hypothetical side of things. I wrote paper after paper on what I thought could be the answers to my question. I wrote down my cogitations in order to review and rearrange them later. To see whence each thread went and how my knowledge could combine to perhaps form a solid conclusion. 

After days of dabbling on the subject, I could finally say that I had a solid theory in hand.

"The presence of magickal remnants and their oscillatory dissonance in conjunction with the total absence of active, arcane energy conductors and vitality of living beings, mortal or immortal, in light of the bygone presence of an extraordinary amount of arcane energies, Nirnic, Daedric or otherwise, is to be held responsible for the instability of local space and its decay, resulting in the overlapping, and partial, temporary bridging of, heretofore inaccessible layers of planes of existence into accessible pockets, presenting a causality betwixt great amounts of magic and the lack of living things to conduct and/or harness/control it to achieve an anomaly not otherwise replicable without these special conditions".

In other words: The presence of great amounts of unused, arcane energy as a result of the history of the Crypt of Hearts and the lack of physical bodies to give stability to these energies is the reason for this strange occurrence. And I just needed to prove it.

To substantiate my claim was no easy feat as should turn out. I was forbidden entrance into the depths and even if I was to go there again, by what means should I bring my theory to proof? I couldn't just occlude my body from the room and hope anything happens, much less take anyone with me who could witness the event. According to my preliminary findings at the time, the effect could only be achieved with the absence of life - a troubling prospect that made it quite difficult to be witnessed by eyes other than the one conducting the experiment. 

However, that day, the Headmaster would again knock on my door to present me with a promising proposition. 

V

Looking back, the things that I found during my time at the Institute of the Water's Wisdom should probably have remained hidden. My research inspired a few students to sneak out of their quarters at night and see for themselves as to whether or not the rumours pertaining to my claims as to the distorted nature of the place were true. And, to their collective misfortune, they were. As was evidenced by a very concerned Alven Flendel who continuously walked in circles within my tiny abode among the towers.

"We have to find them!" he muttered intermittently in between sighs and barely audible groans of mental exertion. "If they don't resurface soon, the magistrate is going to investigate. The lives of these students and the Institute as a whole are at stake, Gautier!".

He looked at me expectantly. After all, I had been the only one to ever go to these transliminal places and return to tell the tale. I had a measure of experience under my belt no-one else had. And this made me the only person Flendel wanted to discuss the problem with. Even before he spelled out his plea for assistance, I could tell that he needed me and my expertise on the field of theoretical magic. The challenge now was to transform this theoretical magic into something that could be applied to the world in some way. To make it tangible. And that was just the trouble. 

"You have to help us, Gautier. You are the only student with enough experience to handle this situation appropriately. Besides, your misdemeanor to intrude upon forbidden grounds has gotten us into this mess in the first place. If not for penitence, at least heed my call out of duty to relinquish your misdeeds".

I loathed to admit it but he was right. I was the cause for all of this. But I didn't lend him my hand out of either remorse nor sense of obligation. No. Forwhy yet again, I got another chance at bringing my plans to fruition. This time around, it was my official task to find a way to force the phenomenon into existence. 

I will not bother you with the exact intricacies of our agreement but I acquiesced. Suffice it to say that I, for the duration of my mission, gained certain freedoms that would grant me access to whatever resources I needed. 

The sight of the barricades at the entrance to the depths filled me with a respect I have yet to experience another time. The securely fastened wood planks that closed off the aperture towards the bowels of Water's Wisdom were discretely compromised on the left hand side as to remain inconspicuous even at close proximity. My sharp eyes however easily spotted the damage those dim-witted knights needed days to discover. 

I inserted my flat hand into the perpendicular opening and lifted my arm up from the wall. The leverage was enough to make the planks come off to reveal the passage that the students must have taken. 

_ Maybe they've just lost their way _ , I thought. After all, I have observed the anomaly in question only by myself and not with multiple people around. But perhaps the group of three was just small enough to vanish elsewhere. In the event that they had actually walked into a trap I prognosticated their deaths in my mind. Of course, I couldn't tell the knights or the Headmaster. 

I squeezed inside under a few, short moans and emerged into familiar terrain. The winding hallways and empty corridors of this mausoleum began to etch themselves into my mind. 

Here it was. That groaning of silence in blackness. 


	2. Chapter II

VI

Before I speak about my experiences pertaining to the rescue of the three students of the Institute of the Water's Wisdom, who ventured into the depths of the ancient Agea Relle in response to my "wrongdoings", let me clearly state that I had no idea what I was dealing with. 

I couldn't have been less prepared for the oncoming events and my foolish belief in what knowledge I had hitherto attained would grind my resolve to a fine powder, carried away as a gentle mist along the twisted paths of that damnable Crypt. 

In order to assure the survival of the missing students as well as my own, Headmaster Flendel loosened a few restrictions in respect to the materials and resources I was permitted to exploit to my favour. For one, I was now permitted to go to and loiter about in places I wasn't usually allowed to visit, including the armoury, the arcane forge, the backrooms of the library, the storage compartments and, of course, the depths themselves. 

Additionally, any  _ acquisition  _ of materials from any of these places was, for the duration of my mission as given to me by Flendel, not counted as theft and therefore not punished. This freedom aided me greatly in my preparations and, ultimately, helped me to get where I am now.

Needless to say I took as many things as I could carry, taking into account the possibility of an unconscious body over my shoulder. I had calculated the probability of a person fainting in the face of terror beforehand and was sure that I had to carry or drag along at least one of them if I intended to save them. And I did. The reputation of the Institute was at stake. And so was the entirety of my future for I wanted to become a renowned scholar myself, perhaps even teach others if all went well.

I did become a scholar in the end, as you can without a doubt perceive, if not by the traditional means of professional progression within the previously established scope of opportunities. Suffice it to say I had to fight hard in order to receive any recognition at all.

Among the variety of items that I took along were highly potent invisibility potions, restorative tinctures, a shortsword forged of silver (for a greater blade would have impeded my movement due to my squeamish strength), a mithril chainmail under my coat and the knowledge I gained through perusal of several, rare texts that, albeit not fully understood, gave me some insight into the entity that had plagued my trans-dimensional travels thus far.

Armed with more mind than matter I set out to retrieve the missing subjects from their self-imposed imprisonment in betwixt the layers of reality. 

The narrow tunnel they had dug through the barricades soon disembogued into the familiar interior I had acquainted myself with rather well. The most salient features I instantly recognised which gave me a sense of direction I had had been missing in the two previous voyages. I remembered that the majority of the intact, beautiful buttresses were in the earlier parts of the structure, most of the stone women holding various magickal items. The sarcophagi began somewhat later and would form a smooth gradient between the two types of decoration. Therein lay some caskets of superior, Altmeri craftsmanship framed by the female pillars that further devolved into little spires around the entombments. 

The further I went, the more graves appeared. However, this, too, should soon change once more to receive the addition of furniture with many different purposes. Bookshelves and long ago dried-up, alchemical laboratories now dotted the many, cavernous halls. And I remembered these as well, for I passed them by on my first venture before I got interrupted by the infernal hungers of Oblivion. It was at this point whence I first lost my way and stumbled into the strange dimension in which I suspected the students to be. But as well as I remembered the layout of the structure, nothing could have prepared me for the next turn I took.

I had not been chased by Daedric terrors this time so I kept my blade sheathed and used the peace to explore my surroundings more consciously. Turns out the senses are less clouded when one isn't being chased around. I came to a crossroads that branched off into different paths. One appeared to lead into some form of ancient habitation, another led into a dark, many-pillared corridor bursting with embellishments upon its walls. Straight ahead there lay a dead end with a door which I speculated to hide an enclosed space such as a storage room based on the fact that I hadn't seen one thus far. 

For the sake of tying up loose ends I decided to investigate the heavy looking door at the far end of the hallway in front of me. A sturdy construct of studded wood, securely fastened with what I suspected to be rusted iron hinges that were bolted to the age old bricks. This brick wall, built into the dank caverns, deliberately separated the room that lay behind from the remainder of the subterranean expanses. A slight draft of air piped through the cracks in and underneath the robust door. The echo thereof wound itself around the corridor, bouncing off walls and ceiling. A howl of a bygone age, the reminiscence of greater things than the ruins I beheld. 

The cold handle felt almost lukewarm against my frostbitten fingers. Only then did I realise just how  _ freezing _ it was down there. And as I pressed on the curiously soundless handle to push open the door, I knew why.

VII

Previously, I was under the impression that the various, spacial dimensions in any given place always visually represented said place the way it used to be the very moment before one would cross the event horizon, the threshold of space. In most instances, this is absolutely the case and laymen can't tell the difference. Then again, in most instances, this phenomenon occurs for about half a second so it is fiendishly hard to tell if something had changed. 

However, sometimes there is a wholly different element at play. One that sets the anomaly I am referring to apart from interdimensional travel via sigil stones and portals. For past the heavy, wooden door that opened so silently lay no ruins. Instead, a brightly lit, furnished and intact storage room presented itself to me.

Confused, I instantly turned around in an effort to assess the situation. I found that, curiously, the  _ entire structure _ suddenly seemed strangely occupied. Many of the carved pillars now held welkynd torches. Chandeliers of varla stones hung from the high ceiling. A few burning candles accentuated the gloomier corners of the place. I turned around and around and beheld ever more things that must have freshly appeared. Clean tables with intact scrolls, firm books well ordered on sturdy shelves. Even half-eaten meals were left on metallic plates of greyish colour. 

Suddenly, I realised that before me had to have been the old Agea Relle. At a point in time where it hadn't yet fallen victim to disaster and decay or monstrous dæmons. And there it was, plain as day, that the infernally twisting fabric of reality was weaving time as much as it had hitherto woven space. And I had to ask myself where  _ in time _ I had been on the first few voyages I undertook. 

And I profoundly wondered where in time I was then. I found no means to alleviate this issue however, as all legible Altmeri script gave no details as to day, month or era that I so impetuously walked through. And all books and scrolls present were curiously illegible in the same fashion as my personal notes were on my first trip to the forbidden parts of the Institute. 

What I utterly failed to carry along were quill, ink and paper. As such I was not able to directly record my findings. Nevertheless I received insight into what the place I called the Institute really was like all that time ago. And how much of its former treasures it was bereaved of, how many of the former murals, statues and artifacts were reduced to dust.

Just then I wondered if it would be possible to carry over an item from that time back to my very own and what this would do to it.

Heretofore I only speculated on dimensional liminality, spacial instability but never did I take temporal disfigurement into account.

In response to this rather unexpected development I stalled not and proceeded to dislodge one welkynd stone from its sconce to stash it away in my pouch. I just  _ had _ to see what literal time travel would do to this object.

Carefully I proceeded down the hallway that I had previously traversed - albeit at a different time. My overwhelming fascination with the environment completely overshadowed the eerie sense of solitude I should have gotten. For although the halls were brightly lit and the meals on the plates half-eaten, there was no one there. Not a mer or man nor cat nor lizard. No beasts, no game, no fauna at all. The perfect illusion of bustling life began to crumble. I was alone. Alone in a temporal cross section of three dimensional space that shewed me nothing but shadows from the past.

Oppressive silence once again laid its tender fingers around my throat. I felt choked as I tried to breathe the depleting air in a foreign layer of reality. I began to see what I can only describe as delusional constructs of my mind that started to roam about. Humanoid silhouettes populated the densely packed caverns. At first, I thought that these were the literal shadows of the past, displaying some sort of a reenactment of their bygone everyday lives until they floated around. Some merged into greater ones, gradually transforming into a huge, black mass of the  _ thing _ I had acquainted myself with weeks ago. I turned and ran for my life.

I made haste. Soundless steps carried me further from the encroaching dark. I managed to drink one of the invisibility potions and watched myself disappear completely but the entity pursued me all the same. Oh, my foolish belief in preparedness! It never was my physical self that the thing would pursue. Past gleaming stones and glittering baubles of an age long gone I slipped in hopes of prolonging my life and not fall victim to a viscous void. The invisibility got dispelled by the strange force of whatever attempted to capture me.

A screech of indefinable origin made itself manifest in this lost region of time and space, before reality folded in on itself. 

I can barely describe the visuals of this annihilation. Behind me, in front of me in the distance, in the narrow corridors that ran in-between, walls and floors and ceilings began to break, snap and crunch, getting pressed against each other with præternatural force. Condensed into an ever tinier point, the entire architecture collapsed and the hungry darkness, the wraith of the past - it grew interminably.

And then there she was, bright as Secunda against a blackened night sky. A woman clad in the usual Institute garments. Silver skin met golden hair beneath a filthy robe of what used to be the finest fabric attainable. Aimlessly she wandered here, in this unspace of transient existence. 

Her hollow gaze met my eyes and I watched as life returned to her dry orbs. She had lost her way and fell to despair. Now it was my duty to prevent she fall to the terrible maw of nothingness. I ran past and clutched her hand. There was no time for formalities. I pulled her along without knowing her name. In my mind I called her Secunda - and I still remember her as such. She was mute with terror and despair but I asked her the most pressing question: "Where are the others?".

Her eyes widened, tears bursting out of them, running down her face in thick streams. "I don't know", she aspirated as we both ran and took turns rapidly to avoid getting crushed by the hostile environment. Her breath was fast, her nose clotted so she had to breathe her mouth dry as we tried to flee from imminent doom. "They just… vanished. And then I… I stepped into the light and couldn't find an exit", she explained, holding onto her breath only just. Secunda iterated further that her companions appeared to  _ melt away _ into the void before she found herself alone. 

In that moment, I somehow felt a temporary plane shift occur nearby. It's a phenomenon I named and described in my scriptures. It is directly linked to what I had been investigating and to what held those three, poor souls prisoner. In its simplest form, a plane shift provokes the temporary bridging of dimensional gaps, limited to a certain, unstable area. Basically a portal to and fro the pocket dimensions that seem to exist everywhere. An experienced and sufficiently sensitive mage can feel these as they appear for the entire magicka around that area changes flow direction, spin intensity and resonance frequency as long as that rift stays open. 

I saw the opportunity immediately and realised that I had this sensation before when I fled the darkness and ended up in the arms of the guards who would bring the entire affair to Flendel's attention. I pulled the unfamiliar girl I named Secunda along into the direction I felt the sensation from. I instinctively knew that it could provide salvation. A few steps later and it came into view. The shuffling and spiralling of reality. For the first time I was to behold the grace of the thing I so desperately tried to bring about. And now it was there, within reach, right before my eyes.

I tugged the girl I named Secunda along, hurried with her in tow towards the warping space straight ahead when suddenly, I lost grip of her hand. I turned and saw her fall face first to the ground. Rushing to her aid, I took her arm and pulled, trying to pull her up again so we might escape. Seconds later, I viewed the face of stark horror. I am unable to describe the look of her eyes, her expression of pure fear as I tried to pull her to me. 

The lone foot that had solemnly betrayed her was stuck in the folding, contorting rooms behind her. The black mist was gone, nowhere to be seen, but instead the place itself now turned against us. She was stuck and I didn't have the strength to sever her connexion to it. 

I held her hand as the most inhuman screams emanated from her, threatening to shatter her vocal cords. In the back I saw what agony drove her to this madness. Her flesh and bones were reduced to scraps of gore, little by little, as the winding spaces folded in on themselves. She was trapped and flailed about. Piercing pleas for help drilled through my skull and into my conscience. I did everything in my power to prevent her death. I tried to cut off her leg with the silver sword. And although its edge was sharp enough to cut her flesh, was it yet too dull to cleave her bones. And as the space folded I lost the sword to it.

Her fingers clawed with otherworldly strength into my skin. Her nails drew my blood as they tried to hold on. All the while, her lower body got crushed under the immense power of what destroyed this pocket of space. The legs bent unnaturally until the bones snapped and the muscles tore, folded flat on top of each other, again and again like stacks of dried leather under the hot sun of the Alik'r desert. 

The screaming got ever more strident until finally, her voice was no more, resigned to her compromised, bodily integrity and uncommon overexertion of the now blistered throat. A cacophony of wild wheezing and crimson gurgling spewed blood all over my garb as her upper body contracted under the impossible pressure before breaking. The last I saw of the girl I named Secunda was the lower arm with hand I held still after the ordeal was over and the force of continuous pulling threw me backwards into the shifting anomaly whereby I returned to my own dimension.

VIII

I was not prepared for that. I was young, then. And I am confident that, taking these days' experience into account, I would have recovered from that incident far more quickly. Alas, I had yet to make these experiences and so, I just sat there. Dazed, reeling, on the very precipice of mental oblivion. My tremulous hands still holding on to the final piece of the girl. The eerie silence got intermittently disturbed by my sudden inhaling of air for I forgot to breathe amidst all the chaos in my head.

A tiny pool of blood formed beneath the open flesh wound. The dark red water trickled down and filled the fractals in the ground. I was drenched in the sticky substance. It hardened in places and peeled off my skin where it did. Coagulated drops formed at the edges where the concentration of blood wasn't heavy enough for it to get pulled downwards. 

I was coated in smudges. Filthy, with a rotten stench of iron and decay. 

It took a while until I regained my senses. It felt like the world around me "popped" into existence when I awoke from my shock-induced stasis. A deep breath, in and out, the present putrefaction notwithstanding, announced the return of my more conscious self. The tremors gradually ebbed and the scientist in me began to come back. A wave of new, scholarly resolve washed over me and I decided that I could not leave this last bit of remains in those catacombs. I had to take the arm back to the surface. If not for my sake, at least the family could conduct a proper passing ceremony to mourn.

I made some room in my pouch and applied one of the restorative tinctures to a few wounds I had contracted in the last few moments. Chafed skin on my arms and face got mended with ease at the hands of the alchemical mixture. Even the deep cuts from the fingernails healed fully upon application of the light-green cream. The slight burning of the injuries ceased and my previously frozen joints moved properly again. 

The freed space was now occupied by the severed limb. A piece of cloth around the elbow to staunch the flow of blood into the pouch. I didn't want my resources to be sullied, after all.

Slowly, I left the spot I had been sitting in. There were still traces from the recent accident. Fragments of bone and sinew surrounded the tiny, red puddle. Smears on the walls. And the echoes in my mind that would never stop. 

I cleared my head of thoughts and focused on my goal. There were still two students to find, after all. If I could at least bring them back. Previously I saw this as an opportunity to deepen my understanding of the prevalent anomaly but all it did was confuse me.

I struggled to understand just how it entered different layers of time. And how it erased itself. 

I did not possess the necessary mental acuity at the time to come up with any valid hypothesis. What began as an adventure to experience that distortion in space once more became a nightmarish fight for survival. Sure, I carried provisions. But they were intended to last a day. Two days if I stretched my rations to some degree. However, the labyrinthine corridors and maze-like hallways held me deep within their grasp. Escape seemed impossible for I had no point of reference. I didn't know where I was and where that place was in relation to anything. There was architecture I hadn't seen before, unfamiliar markings on the walls. 

Had I gone deeper? I couldn't quite tell. All I knew with certainty was that I hadn't seen this part before. In the spirit of science and discovery I tried as best I could to indulge and forget my fate for now. 

The place I ended up in after the portal behind me collapsed appeared to be burial grounds at first. Unsurprising, considering the depth I must have been. But there was something queer there, too. Forwhy it may have been a place of funeral and mourning, several shrines and suspicious tables indicated otherwise. 

The true purpose of that region was made clear when I laid eyes upon a very special type of gem righteous folk rarely get to see. More unsavory practitioners of certain techniques are in closer connexion to these.

On a circular table, next to a small, anthracite pile of void salts atop a blueish shimmering Altmeri rune, there lay a jetty black crystal. A gem of pure, solid night that seemed to devour the surrounding light.  _ A black soul gem _ , I thought. However, it was different and set itself apart from those I knew. Traditionally, a black soul gem was composed of a regular, great soul gem tainted with the blight of the Necromancer's Moon, blackened by dark magick and forever plagued. Mostly dark grey in hue, light reflected off its surface to give it a lilac shimmer.

The one before me, though, was just black. It was so dark that, at first glance, it was as if I viewed a flat object such as a piece of paper. In whatever way I turned it, even if I could feel its form I could not make out its true dimensions with my eyes. 

Suddenly I realised that I must have stumbled upon the lair of a necromancer of old. Perhaps the old wizards of Agea Relle used these depths to conduct their blasphemous rituals. By what means these special, black gems could have come about defied my thither acquired knowledge. There was a force inside of it that frightened me. Even so, I chose to take it with me regardless. Who knows what it might be good for should I ever be able to leave these caverns?

And as I stashed it away in my pouch, another object made itself comfortable within my palm. A bland crystal that lost its former gleam, with cracked sides and rough edges, a base of a metal alloy rich in ornamentals. It was the welkynd stone.

I let go of the darker-than-black bauble and produced from my pouch the welkynd stone I had brought back from my unforeseen travel back in time. It almost crumbled in my hand. An interesting discovery, for it told me that objects I bring back from these forlorn realities don't magickally duplicate - they stay the same. But I fear I may or may not have caused a temporary disturbance elsewhere because of this.

To get these thoughts out of my mind I set the gem down onto the ground, leaving it in the depths. I had no use for an artifact without power. Its antiquity made it useless to me. And perhaps it had already been used at another time.

I put the stone down and inadvertently disturbed a layer of very old dust as my robe flowed in the movement. The obscuring dirt coating faded and revealed beneath the powerless crystal a magick seal of unknown make. 

Never before had I seen this design. Two circles, one large and one smaller in diameter, formed as one and contained glyphs of foreign origin. Strangely curved and swirling lines stood in stark contrast to the overall ubiquitous Altmeri script that decorated walls and tapestries. In its center was drawn an eye, surrounded by more angular glyphs that did look to belong to the others.

I began to question the true origins and the original purpose of Agea Relle and what all of this meant when my pouch began to faintly vibrate, humming a tune of unique resonance. Singing in tune with a strange song I couldn't understand. The glyphs beneath my feet started moving; the outer circle to the right, the inner circle to the left. The pouch shook violently until I identified the source of the surge of power: the black gem. 

I took it out again and it was drawn towards the moving circle of strange, unidentifiable symbols. In mid-air it floated when a dark light emerged from it. The light made a pillar and stood as prehensile darkness in the room. And from it I could hear unnerving sounds.

Grey mists dispersed and shewed through the black lustre a vitreous world of crystal spires and glass floor. In the distance, a humanoid shadow knelt before a cyclopean, obsidian obelisk that towered high into the leaden sky. Rays of eternal twilight refracted in the grand monolith. Hands folded in prayer to a god that didn't rule in that realm, the figure sat still in front of the structure.

I involuntarily reached out to this window into another world. My fingertips touched the edge of the pillar of light and got submerged in energy. In shock, I retracted my arm when it dawned on me: I just created a portal into a soul gem!

In light of this new revelation I did the most risky thing I could. I entered the portal. With no clear way back than the promise that the connexion would not falter I trod unprecedented grounds.

IX

I dived into the light, submerging myself in the energy of a portal I could only suspect the true destination of based on the visuals the pillar had given me before. And I began to question not only Agea Relle's true purpose - I also began to ask myself how many ways to bridge gaps into other planes of existence there truly were. 

Had I hitherto believed in "Liminal Bridges" being the prime work of reference for any scholar interested in interdimensional travel, did I now get the impression that, with my experiences, I could formulate a postulate in respect to the magickal effects of antediluvian, arcane techniques and the effects of abandoned, latent energy in an environment. 

But I had no time to concern myself with such cogitations at that moment for I smoothly slipped through the surface into the realm of the black soul gem. The sound of crunching little glass shards announced my advent into these strange lands. The air was incredibly thin and light, chilling and breathing in felt as if a thousand little knives cut into the lungs. 

And truly, I surfaced at the very spot that I was permitted to view through the lens of the gateway, staring into the direction of the gargantuan obelisk and its worshipper. Behind me a magickal window into the ruins I came from. 

To reassure myself I stuck my hand inside and saw that I could leave that place if I so desired. Of course, I had no knowledge as to its stability if unsupervised from the outside, if it would stay open all by itself. But I felt a sense of urgency the second I set foot into the glass wastes of the gem's inside so I did not intend to spend more time than I had to - as much as I wanted to explore.

With cautious steps to prevent myself from tripping or slipping I made my way to the one landmark that dominated the landscape. The figure noticed my approach and turned its head but kept kneeling. As I drew closer I fancied I recognised the garb this shadow wore. The closer I got, the better I could examine the silhouette. 

Their skin appeared to be black and half transparent. Crystals sprouted up from underneath the hair and coat. 

As I neared the obelisk, a voice made itself heard. "Leave this place, lest you become part of it". The male voice emanated from the kneeling shadow. "I was as curious as you were. After I lost my companions I stumbled upon that infernal, black stone. And I made the mistake of taking the plunge and staying here for too long. The gateway behind me closed and since then, I am here. Slowly wasting away, becoming one of the many crystals that dot this landscape".

A closer look at the still intact parts of his garb revealed his affiliation with the Institute. He was one of the missing students, trapped in a soul gem among many other inert souls. I let my gaze wander the limitless horizon and beheld an army of vitreous irregularities in the smooth surfaces.  _ Are all of these lost souls? _ I heard myself think in my own head.

"Yes", the youth answered. "There are no secrets here. I hear your thoughts as clearly as you do".

Overwhelmed, I did the only sensible thing I could think of. I grabbed his hand and tried to take him with me but he only shook his head. With his right hand he pointed down at the ground. To my shock, I discovered that his kneeling legs were already fused to the floor. The transformation had already begun.

"It is already too late for me. Leave as long as you still can", he commanded and aimed his already blackening index finger towards the shrinking portal.

I lost no time and hurried to escape. I jumped through and fell onto the other side. I bruised my face but that was a low price to pay in exchange for my freedom. Behind me the portal closed and the black soul gem hit the ground, rolling gently off the magick circle. 

I watched the glyphs stop spinning, the light fading. Before long all was still yet again.

An epiphany struck me square in the head and I scoured the area for some means of documentation. I needed paper and a piece of coal. I had no hope of acquiring any ink down there since I suspected that, if there had been any, it must have dried long ago. 

Shoving away phials, pebbles and enchanting utensils from the nearby tables I finally found the writing instruments I looked for. A dried, aged and thoroughly wrinkled piece of paper from a scroll of which the contents had become forever illegible and that would, over the following days, fade away into oblivion. It served as my improvised canvas for the charcoal in my hand to draw upon. If I intended to drive my research forward, even in light of such incredibly grim circumstances, I needed to document this. And so I drew and scrawled and scribbled, black marks of powdered, charred wood on my hands and forehead until the paper was ready. 

I had, with as much detail as I was able to supply taking my limited skills with drawing instruments into account, copied the magick seal on the ground for further study and analysis. Not only was the discovery of it invaluable for my research, I also needed to know more about it, its history and whence the glyphs originated from. Whoever knew of this power probably stood in contact to a thing or person whom I suppose might have been fluid in the language that was used.

I rolled the hastily scribbled scroll together and picked up the black soul gem, putting both of them in my pouch in the hopes of not triggering any other major disaster.

Admittedly, I was a bit nervous carrying both of these items around together for I could not tell as to whether or not the crudely drawn magick seal on the parchment could interact with the gem in any way. Today, of course, I know that it doesn't work quite as easily. Back then I had lost my trust in the everyday things I previously viewed as harmless and mundane. I was terribly insecure following those events as my perspective got steadily warped and distorted. 

I really didn't know what to expect. After traveling through time and impossible places I believed that anything could happen. Understandable, I suppose. After all, I didn't even get the time necessary to come to terms with the situation at large.

But there was yet hope. For even though I had lost the girl I never knew and the young man who fell to the crystalline shadows, I did carry what remained of them and their memories. And I also knew that there still remained one missing student of the Institute to be found. One to possibly bring back alive. This knowledge fed my resolve to carry on in spite of the ordeal I had already been forced to endure. Lesser men might have given up but I had so many things in my mind that I wanted to still do, so giving up was never an option.

I was not particularly brave, mind you. But I was curious enough to brace the unknown even in the face of death. I just  _ had _ to know. The secrets beckoned so sweetly that I foolishly disregarded each and every warning along my ruinous path. A path that should lead me to even greater peril.

X

Skulking in the darkness of the caverns was burdensome. But it was not the darkness alone that kept me on edge - there came together several, critical factors that made the region I traversed particularly inhospitable and undesirable as a location for any sort of travel.

For one, there was an abundance of corpses. Inside or outside of sarcophagi, in the walls, on the floor, hanging from the ceiling. The deeper I went, the more bodies appeared. While it may be a necromancer's paradise, I had the sneaking suspicion that those dank reaches may not have been used for necromancy. At least this wasn't the sole purpose of the crumbling mausoleum I had set foot in as was evidenced by the presence of those special glyph circles of the ilk I had crudely documented before in specially designed stone pedestals beside greater concentrations of bodies.

The ubiquity of death and putrefaction in conjunction with the frightening implications of the excess of the strange magick seals notwithstanding the absence of soul gems to use them with painted a queer picture of alienation from what I was wont to believe or know about the civilisations I thought I was familiar with. 

An Altmeri death cult that gained access to the planes of soul gems? Closer examination of the dead that lay scattered everywhere revealed that all of them were merish in origin - if not outright Altmer. This led me to believe that whoever was in charge of these depths intended to capture and seal away all of those Altmer inside of soul gems without killing them directly, using the portals as a possible way back. It didn't make a lot of sense but this was the only explanation I had at the time.

Mounds of rock and bones concealed a few deadly drops that hid themselves in the treacherous floor. Holes with darkness protruding from them I almost fell into every once in a while, attributed to the low visibility of anything and everything. Some of which sported broken ladders. There was an  _ even _ deeper layer to this. I had already trouble estimating just how far down I was. 

After all, I just emerged here after I fell through a shifting, shuffling anomaly in mid-air from a dimension I could barely comprehend. To say that I was utterly lost would be an understatement. I had absolutely no idea where I was. 

As the time down there passed, I began to lose all sense of direction or time or place. Each corner I turned looked just like the last, every hole I stared down into contained the same abyss. I knew not whence I came, where the exit was. It was just too dark to see clearly. The only things that were visible against the darkness were the holes in the ground, for they were even darker.

Finally I rested, exhausted from the labyrinth. Natural stone pillars stretched from floor to ceiling amidst the increasing amount of holes. A forest of ice cold rock surrounded me. I carried myself a little further and noticed that the many corpses that had hitherto occupied the scenery were nowhere to be found. Only stone and holes and darkness. 

In a last-ditch effort I conjured one more light to see if there was a path I could follow out of this maze. The match was struck, the flame was lit and a face, frightened out of its mind, appeared before me, pushing me away. I slipped and fell headfirst into one of the ominous holes. The fearful figure tripped on a nearby stone outcropping shortly after they tried to flee and fell into the abyss as well.

I could not scream for I felt such fear that I was mute. I heard the other person scream as I fell until a very unpleasant noise silenced the wails of the poor soul. And I fell deeper and deeper, into a cold embrace.

Something happened. I was blind and cold. I stopped falling and instead floated in the viscous void I had been floating in before. There was nothing, only the silence of my deafened ears. I heard my own breathing, my own heartbeat. Where did I go? 

I remembered the fall and the demise of whom I theorised to be the last missing student. After they died I stopped falling and started to gently float about in the blackness. 

Then I knew. I had slipped in between dimensions again, right after they had died. Their exitus was my salvation. 

My heart raced. I suddenly understood what had happened and I knew I had to get out. I survived the viscous void once and resurfaced somewhere within the Institute. But I had nary a recollection of all the events that led thither.

It felt like waking from a dream to find yourself within a nightmare. I struggled and kicked and tried to shout - for naught. All my efforts did was to deepen my sorrow as fluid leaked into my lungs. It flooded my body until I thought I'd drown.  _ This is it, then, _ I heard my mind think. But just as I accepted my fate, a force disturbed the murky waters that threatened to swallow me whole. Raucous rumbling, swirling movement and quaking ocean shattered the chains that bound me. And just like that, I woke, drenched, not far from the guarded entrance I had taken into the depths.

XI

An inexplicable mass of opaque water spread in the narrow tunnel I had crawled through to get inside the forbidden parts of Agea Relle. It washed over me, it cleansed ancient dust off the floor that I laid upon, coughing heavily, gasping for air, struggling intensely to evacuate what was left of this fluid from my respiratory system.

I involuntarily stained the stones beneath me with the contents of my stomach as it emptied itself to prevent further harm. There was no telling of how much water I must have accidentally swallowed as I tried to free myself from the clutches of an abyssal sea.

I was drenched but even this could not wash away the blood of the girl. Nor did it destroy my belongings. Just as if it tried only to kill me without leaving many traces of itself. As if it had some degree of sentience or at least thinking. Perhaps it was the darkness that pursued me whenever I trod those grounds. 

I recovered from the shock of having been almost drowned and clumsily crawled out of the little aperture that separated the depths from the rest of the Institute. I was careful not to damage my pouch or the contents therein. They were of the utmost importance. 

Halfway through the opening, the guards already grabbed my coat and pulled me out, helping me to my feet. Their faces spoke volumes but none possessed the courage to inquire about the details of my harrowing journey. They instantly understood, however, that my mission must have been less than successful judging from my ragged appearance and the lack of any companions. 

One of the knights pointed towards the blood stains on my robe and asked: "Whose…?".

"Mine", I lied, cutting him off. "Just… take me to Flendel. We have something to discuss, I'm afraid".

With the two knights of the Order in tow I ascended the many steps of the numerous staircases. Some followed straight and angular designs whereas others were curiously wound, not quite spiralling upwards or downwards either. The architects of this monumental structure, that went several orders of magnitude deeper than any of us knew, were as ingenious as they appeared to be mad.

After some time I again arrived at the door to Headmaster Flendel's quarters at the top of the highest reaching tower in the Institute. The sight of his door filled me with a deep respect but also with worry, for I had no good news to bring back to my contractor. The knights left me alone and returned to their posts. I knocked at the door.

Flendel's expression was that of shock, wonder and disappointment. His mouth agape and his sharp eyebrows raised, it took a while until he could voice any question at all.

"What by Oblivion happened to you?", he asked. "And I suppose the absence of other students in similar condition means that…". He stopped and covered his mouth with his slender, grey fingers in thought. 

I opened my pouch and produced from it the coarsely bandaged arm of the girl. "This is what's left", I heard myself whisper. A tear made its way from my eye to my chin. "Of the girl", I finished. 

My hands began to shake and Flendel took away the burden of the arm from me before it could escape my unsteady grasp. 

"And the others?", he inquired, arm still in hand.

I told him the entire story, my entire ordeal and what it meant for the Institute as a whole.

I relayed to Flendel how I ended up in a space that was back in time. How I met the girl and how she, then, met her demise. 

I told him of my findings in the mausoleum within some of the deepest reaches of that infernal abyss. Of the magick seals and the soul gem which I shewed to him. I explained what these things did without telling him that I copied the strange glyphs so that I might keep my parchment. I told of how I inadvertently disturbed the seal and opened a portal before I handed him the gem.

Through touch alone, Flendel knew what immense power slumbered within. I iterated upon the mounds of dried corpses and the many humanoid shapes I observed along the horizon of the gem's inside. And of the young man who knelt there.

"You went  _ inside _ of the gem?", Flendel asked bewilderedly. He could not truly believe it but he had to trust my story regardless. And he realised that he held in his hands the equivalent of a small civilisation's worth of souls, possibly. And what remained of the second student.

Flendel made sure to properly confiscate the great, black stone for further analysis. Then he turned to me, expectantly. "And the last one?".

I began to talk about the last portion of my travels. About the darkness and the underworld I found myself in. How I endlessly wandered betwixt pillars of rock until I met the one whom I was looking for. And how the tragic tale concluded as the two of us fell and only one would hit the ground. And I drifted back into the world I knew by means I have yet to understand completely. 

We sat in silence for a while, Flendel and I. His eyes raced back and forth and back again as he contemplated the information I had just given him. He inhaled and exhaled strongly and shook his head. His hands pressed against his eyes and his tired gaze met mine. 

"I'd suggest you return to your quarters. I have a lot to take care of. Thank you for your services. I… will provide compensation as soon as we'll meet again."

He sighed.

"Now leave me be. I have letters to write and reports to file. Thank you again."

With these words, our esteemed headmaster bid me farewell and sent me back to my room whither I went without asking questions. 

My garb had dried in the meantime. When I finally returned to my room I put my pouch next to the bed that I would lay and rest upon. A dreamless sleep would engulf me as soon as my head touched the pillow.

A few days went by but I did not leave my room. I was afraid I could attract the attention of any students in mourning over their lost friends. Or worse.

Instead, I would spend my time with analysis and the proper reconstruction of the magick seal that was already beginning to vanish as coal is quite a fickle material when it comes to documentation. 

Meticulously I would make every effort to adequately depict what I had seen down below on a fresh paper using ink. Accuracy was important if I intended to use it in later studies. If I did sloppy work I might as well quit. Magick needs precision, after all.

The restoration process was arduous but necessary. After days of painful drawing and writing down entire paragraphs pertaining to the nature and shapes of the glyphs used, my work was done. The seal was complete with all its symbols of which I took various notes, comparing them to other glyphs and alphabets that I knew in an effort to gain more insight into the inner workings of this exotic type of magick.

I wrote down anything I could remember of my experience, made a sketch of the soul gem I used and tried to figure out what forces were at play here.

And yet, there was so much more to think about. The time travel phenomenon to one of those lifeless dimensions as well as the way in which the fabric of reality would collapse. I filled many pages after all that had up to that point happened. And that was the right choice, forwhy one day, there was a knock at my door just as I wanted to make an attempt at coming up with a solid hypothesis. 

It was Headmaster Flendel.

"Mr. Gautier", he began, "over these past few days I have stood in close contact with the Magistrate. It was my duty as this institution's leading figure to discuss the matter of the missing students with them. I'm afraid to tell you that they have been less than pleased with what I had to tell."

"They have issued an investigation into the things you have found and brought back. Since you haven't left your quarters in a while it is understandable that you missed it. I did everything in my power to keep the Magistrate away from your person as to not incite more ill reminiscence. However, they have come to a conclusion today which I received by mail. The letter contained precise instructions that I must follow if I intend to keep this place of learning alive".

"The letter reads thusly:

_ By order of the Magistrate: _

_ The student Robert Gautier needs to take responsibility for his actions. His improvidence led to the untimely demise of three of his own and opened the doors to a realm of danger beneath a densely populated area. There is no telling of how profound the resulting consequences may become. Thus, the Magistrate deems it appropriate to permanently restrict Mr. Gautier's access to the institution.  _

_ Furthermore, Headmaster Alven Flendel is to immediately instruct Mr. Gautier to leave the Institute of the Water's Wisdom within the next two (2) days and take his personal belongings with him. Failure to follow this order will result in the temporary or permanent shutdown of the Institute of the Water's Wisdom and Headmaster Alven Flendel's immediate retirement from his position as headmaster of this or any other magical institution now or in the future. _

_ -The Magistrate" _

"I am sorry, Mr. Gautier. I have to expel you from the Institute. Please, pack your things and leave within the next two days. If you fail to leave in time, an escort of knights will assist you in exiting this institution".


	3. Chapter III

XII

In retrospect, I should have probably never defied the laws and regulations of the Institute. Some horrible deaths could have been prevented and who knows? Perhaps I could have grown into a proficient teacher myself by now. Or became a scholar with some reputation whose knowledge is sought after by many kingdoms. But if this was the case, none of the groundbreaking revelations I have to relay would have been discovered. Any lesser wizard than I would have been consumed by Agea Relle's depths and so, all of those secrets would have never made it to the surface.

I do deeply regret, however, that I had been forcibly removed from the Institute of the Water's Wisdom by the Magistrate.

Oh yes, the Magistrate.

They are a more recently formed elite group of witches, wizards, mages and enchanters who came together from all over Tamriel during the Fourth Era after the Dragon Crisis. 

As the Crypt of Hearts got restored into a place of study, other places had sprung up all over the continent as well. At one time there were over three hundred different, little institutions - from the small household who engaged in cheerful backyard teaching to the grandiose Institute and others of its ilk, there was no limit to how big or small these places could be. 

In response to the overwhelming amount of self-proclaimed teachers, a conglomerate of court wizards, warlocks and hardened veteran mages from all provinces (even Orsinium, if you count it as such) came together in High Rock in the then freshly restored Crypt of Hearts to discuss the matter and find a solution to a problem that began to foreshadow itself on the horizon. 

Due to their high ranking positions within the various, continental monarchies, these mages held some power and were granted political authority over the world of magickal teaching institutions. 

The results were laws that the ruling parties of the provinces needed to agree upon. These laws were highly specific but had since then shaped the world of magick teaching.

The very first step the newly founded Magistrate took was to cull the many places of learning to more manageable numbers. The first law they presented concerned itself with the minimum size of the institution and staff in question. To quote their official pamphlet, it stated:

_ "A probable institution intended for the learning and teaching of theoretical and applied magic, tonal architecture, enchanting, the doctrine of souls, Thu'um theory, mythomathematics, alchemy amongst other topics of arcanely relevant fields must fulfill all of the following prerequisites: _

  * _It must possess a floorspace of at least 12.800 square pertans_


  * It must possess at least two storeys above ground level for habitation


  * It must possess at least one storey below ground level for storage of arcane and alchemical items; said space is required to be inaccessible to apprentices


  * It must possess at least one designated space for magical practice with a floorspace of at least 4.000 square pertans 


  * It must be occupied by no less than 5 experienced mages at all times who pose as teachers and managers of the institution in question; the mages in question are required to possess experience of at least expert rank of all traditional schools of magic


  * Every institution is required to choose and appoint a headmaster, arch mage or an otherwise magically competent practitioner as headmaster, arch mage or an equivalent position of authority to lead the institution in question; said headmasters are bound by the jurisdictional influence of the Magistrate."



This is but one of the many laws the Magistrate conceived of - but it was also the most important at its time. This law single-handedly erased countless of these "schools" and led to the development of bigger schools and universities instead. The small bands of tiny mage conglomerates needed to come together in order to build a school. This simultaneously made the matter more manageable and raised the quality of the things being taught, so the Magistrate wasn't all bad.

But this Magistrate was also responsible for my involuntary discontinuation of studying magick at the Institute. It was founded in the Institute and held special jurisdictional power over Alven Flendel. If push comes to shove, the Magistrate can  _ shove _ .

And so it was that I got expelled and had to make my fortune elsewhere. There was nothing Flendel could do for me if he intended to keep his occupation. And I held no grudge against him. How could I? He was just following orders like everyone else.

I had two days to gather my belongings and leave the Institute's premises. If I didn't want a small squadron of armed and armoured knights to "assist" me in exiting the Institute, of course. 

I knew that I did not intend to make my removal any more forceful than it already was, so I made haste to cram everything I owned into the few bags I had.

Available were a pouch, a knapsack and the space that I had to carry items on my person. Not much, considering the immense number of papers I filled with my notes, theories, revelations, analyses and more. Already two books' worth of the written word just from my personal notes. Additionally I needed to carry various, alchemical experiments I had done during actual classes, volumes of basic arcane knowledge, clothes, ingredients, food.

It was fiendishly difficult to leave with everything that I owned so I left the books I brought thither in my old room to make space for my notes. I also abandoned the concoctions I brewed as well as the Institute robe. This enabled me to carry some additional food to whichever place the Divines would guide me.

Not that the Nine did have any part in my business. It is more like Daedra to meddle in the affairs of mortals, albeit I sometimes mused that one of the Aedra was at least in part responsible for my survival. Today I know that this is entirely impossible though.

Before long I found myself at the gates of the Institute of the Water's Wisdom, formerly Crypt of Hearts, formerly Agea Relle, and wondered whither I should go.

To return to the estate of my family was out of the question. Charitable people they may be, they'd still view my failure with disdain. This venerable lineage did not exactly permit social blemishes. I acted in an unruly and childish manner wherefore I lost the grace of my family whether I told them or not. Prematurely returning to the Gautier Estate would be less than preferable. 

So I did the only thing a sensible, lone mage could do: search for vacant ruins and set up camp.

I cleverly snuck out not through the entrance that lay on the High Rock side of the Institute. Instead I exited through the other entrance located past Skyrim's border. I couldn't really return to North Point and my family would have found me if I stayed in High Rock. Flendel had no doubt sent a letter to the Gautier Estate to notify them of my removal. So there was no place I wished to go in my home province.

Skyrim was the most immediately reachable province from the Institute. The great double doors disembogued into the Skyrim hold known as the Reach with its great city of stone against a mighty mountain ridge.

XIII

The Reach was, as would soon become apparent, less than ideal a region to occupy and dwell in. There were several, rather inconvenient circumstances that all came together to make it a very inhospitable place to call home.

For one, there was a regionally active, politically problematical group called the Forsworn. A hold-spanning tribe of utter barbarians believed to be led by the even more despicable hagravens, the second big problem. And although their ritualistic briarhearts and the frequent camps were a great source of alchemical items as well as magickal oddities, so were these people quite lethal to be around and best avoided.

Truth be told, the only somewhat safe place in the Reach was the great city of Markarth. But even then did one constantly run the risk of being arbitrarily persecuted for a crime one didn't commit just so that there was another slave to work in the Cidhna mine. Corruption and lopsided politics were the norm within the city limits and the hold as a whole. The Jarl possessed only limited power which was itself mostly limited to Understone Keep. Outside the partly subterranean castle, the Silver Bloods were the real rulers.

Combined with the oppressive fear of Markarth's populace of the Forsworn tribes outside, and possible Forsworn agents that destabilised the government and social infrastructure from within, the grandiose city of stone was one of the worst places one could choose to spend their time in.

The only redeeming factor for Markarth was its Dwemeri heritage and Calcelmo, a great Altmer scholar and expert on the field of Dwemer studies, who researches the lost race of Tamriel even today in the bowels of Understone Keep. Curiously, he always seemed unimpressed by all the commotion outside his quarters down by the ruins.

I've met him a couple of times in later years after my unique field of study became somewhat established and I struggle to understand why he is particularly unbothered by the reachmen and the Silver Bloods.

Perhaps he is a mightier mage than he would let on. Or maybe he is not important enough of a political target to expect any real harm.

After I crossed the border to Skyrim I knew that I should depart from the Reach as quickly as possible. I carried too much research with me to die or get robbed. Research that was too valuable to be measured in Septims. Taking into account what conclusions I reached because of it, its value is phantastical.

I made my way from the hold's border to the city of Markarth quickly to avoid complications. I feared for my life every step of the way which was part of the reason for my almost irrational haste. But I knew better than to loiter about beneath the white branches of a juniper tree and rest, only to become a target for resident savages and black-feathered witches. I came prepared. 

Back at the Institute, I chose wisely to add "Tamrielic Zoology and Anthropology" to my fields of study, which conveniently included some specimens found predominantly in and around Skyrim such as the hagravens or the ravenous Falmer that would surely lie in wait and prey on me once I tried to enter any underground structure. Volumes such as "Cats of Skyrim", "The "Madmen" of the Reach", "The Wispmother" and the various entries in Herbane's Bestiary. All of these were of course nothing compared to actual experience out in the field. But I never suspected to find myself in Skyrim in the first place, especially not under such circumstances. 

Inside Markarth's borders was not much safer than outside. However, most travelers who spent less than a few days in the city or merchants who would not visit the place on a regular basis were largely left alone by all the political noise that was clouding everyone's judgment and mind. Not every stranger was an agent, not every outsider potentially dangerous or harmful. Even the narrow-minded folk of the city of stone realised that. 

Even so, I chose a short stay. Dusk had already begun to fall when I reached the city gates and travel by carriage wasn't safe enough during nighttime which made me opt to stay the night in the Silver Blood Inn. The Reach was already littered with hazards during the day. There was no need to take any chances during the night. A warm mead, stew and some meat from the market kept my hunger and thirst at bay for the time being and even the stone bed promised a restful sleep - although I didn't truly understand how exactly it intended to provide such.

The night was rough and the bed didn't really help that. Don't misunderstand; it was strangely comfortable - for a boulder, that is - but the lethal mix of homesickness, lost honour and the great unknown I now faced were quite tough. I had been to queer dimensions, sure. But they were based on the places I already knew, were they not? I had to flee my home to find myself in a hostile place. I felt deeply unwelcome. Stares of profound disdain and looks of ambiguous motivation came from the glassy eyes of half-drunk patrons. They accompanied my every step into insecure bed chambers and I wasn't all that convinced the door to my temporary quarters would hold fast should a sneak thief try its lock.

Worse still was the commotion from inside the inn that was all too typical for an establishment of its kind. Yet I felt the various guests shouted in a deliberately noisy manner to disturb my already troubled sleep. My fear for molestation turned out to be unwarranted however, and the next morning I was able to leave the city unimpeded.

I headed straight for the horse carriage that appeared to be occupied at all times of day. Stranger yet was the fact that it seemed to wait just for me. Perhaps it was my imagination or pure coincidence but during my stay in Skyrim I've never seen any carriages on the many roads of the icy province. Or maybe the Skyrim folk just didn't travel much.

"Stranger.", the burly man on the wooden seat dryly greeted me from above. "I can take you to any of Skyrim's capitals. For a price."

I acquiesced to the conditions of payment in Septims and asked him about the different holds to find a suitable place for habitation. I needed to procure a more permanent means of shelter that wasn't too close to prying eyes for I intended to continue my research inside Skyrim's borders. 

"Well", the man on the carriage inhaled, "northeast o' 'ere lies the City o' Solitude in Haafingar. Skyrim's capital and seat o' the High King and his military in the Blue Palace and Castle Dour, respectively. There ain't too much goin' on with what the Imperial soldiers an' all but for non-Stormcloaks it's probably the safest place in the province!"

"Haafingar itself features many pleasant views on the forest and rivers an' there runs a swift road between Solitude and Dragon Bridge. Aside from the two places, most people travel to Haafingar fer dealings with the East Empire Company down at the docks. I've never been to the warehouse meself but other travelers told me to avoid it if possible. The EEC warehouse is apparently home to cutpurses, thieves, smugglers and even more unsavory folk from what I've heard."

"Very close to Solitude, a little to the southeast on the map, lies Morthal. A hold o' cold swamp land. Difficult to traverse on foot and quite treacherous with the tall grass and pools of muddy water. The landscape doesn't have much to offer aside from moist air, fog and some trees. The citizens there are especially superstitious in regards to the dark arts and can come off as a little rough and somewhat distrustful. But once they get to know ya they can be real charmers."

"From the barren waste that is Morthal runs a road to Dawnstar in The Pale. Halfway lies the Stonechills mine. If yer feelin' particularly adventurous ye can try and scour for leftovers. But beware of what lurks in the shadows. Many a traveler was never seen again after they've entered the mine."

"Dawnstar's a cold place. The citizens are usually in conflict with a certain dweller and proprietor of some kind of museum. But if ya stay away from all o' that commotion and keep yer thoughts to yer self it'll be fine. I happen to know the owner o' 

Windpeak Inn. Serves the best dishes in all o' Skyrim, far as I'm concerned. But ya should see fer yer self, really."

"But if yer up for a colder, quieter place, Winterhold's gotcha cover'd. Most carriages don't even voluntarily go there because the frigid weather by itself is all sorts o' trouble."

Upon the mention of a quiet place many people seem to avoid purely because of the harsh climate, I began to listen attentively.

"The horses tend to get spook'd by white shadows in the icy gusts whenever I'm unlucky enough to drive into a blizzard. Makes me skin crawl but it's a good source'a some extra Septims. But that's just the tip of the iceberg." He chuckled. "Heh, iceberg…" I looked queerly at him to suggest he continue his speech in the manner that I was accustomed to and he went on without much hesitation, albeit a bit hurt due to our differences in humour.

"A-anyway, as I was sayin', lots'a trouble for us drivers up there. The wood of our wheels 'n wagons tends to take huge hits from all the ice, bending and cracking after prolonged exposure. 'Tis why ye never see a carriage ready at Winterhold. The wood just ain't sturdy enough to withstand the cold for longer than a few days. But folks never wan'ta go there much anyways. There's nothin' there after all. Half the town got swallowed by the great collapse a long time ago and half o' the oder half is in ruins. The few hardy people who remain'd are grumpy at best. The innkeeper's a friendly fellow, however."

"If ya head'n up there ye best not showin' off any o' that magic o' yours. Winterholders're suspicious o' them mages. It ain't no coincidence the College of Winterhold lies next to the destroyed part o' town I tell ye. Everyone knows that. But if ya need some magic knowledge, the College is yer place. Just don't tell anyone about it. The surrounding lands are but cover'd in ice and snow. So if ye brave the elements, beware."

"Rumour has it that there's the remains of a sunken fort to be discover'd somewhere in the hold. Some say Shalidor himself built it! But it is lost to history, now. The only remaining structure erected by Shalidor would be the Labyrinthian in Hjaalmarch southeast of Morthal. Anoder secluded place - if y'know how to find it."

The burly man on the carriage prepared himself to speak yet more about the different holds and their capitals but I raised my hand to motion him to hold his breath. 

"I need you to tell me more about this Labyrinthian you just mentioned. What is it?".

"I dunno, really. Some half-forgotten magic place that's mostly reduced to ruins these days. But ye might yet find treasure o'er there, still. They say the great Shalidor, first arch mage, constructed a great labyrinth atop the ruins of an old city from the dragon age. No idea if the stories're true. But if I know one thing it's that old ruins usually harbour great riches. Ye should perhaps take a look. However, I can't take ye there directly as there's no solid road leadin' to that place. Better ask around in Morthal for directions. All I know is that it lies high up on the mountains southeast o' Morthal. Shall I take ye there?"

A secluded place, up in the mountains where it's so cold most people actively avoid going there  _ and  _ an abandoned, magical ruin no less? This had to be my next destination as it was the ideal place for a scholar of my talents.

"Yes", I then said, "take me to Morthal. I'll take it from there."

Coin changed owners and I climbed up the wooden wagon, off to the town of Morthal on my quest to find the legendary Labyrinthian. 

XIV

The way was longer than expected and after a wild ride over rough rock surfaces and holes, even though we kept to the road, I arrived at dusk in the town of Morthal. From Markarth, we took the road southeast, past Reachwater Rock and Bilegulch Mine. We emerged at a crossroads and took the road that led further up northwest. When we arrived at Rorikstead, we headed north until we passed a Bridge, following the road west into a semicircle that would eventually loop back east for us to go straight to Morthal. I thanked my driver before hopping off to enter the town's borders.

From what I could see during the ride, the Hjaalmarch appeared to be paradoxically less hospitable than the Reach notwithstanding the lack of political insurgents and anthropomorphic abominations. The cold and foggy swamps were filled with insects despite the low temperatures and the moist air was gelid and difficult to get used to. But I didn't come to Morthal to live there. I came to Morthal to find my next place of power.

Places of power are usually described as locations with a lot of latent and/or clearly present, magickal energy that can be manipulated in a few ways. From applying outside force to taking energy away directly via complex techniques. Such places can be very old burial sites such as Ayleid ruins, but also objects with a direct connexion to the cosmos like the standing stones that dot Skyrim's landscape. However, the kind of place I was looking for had to possess another quality entirely. For the purposes of my queer studies, a rich history of magick usage by as many different people as possible was imperative - and Labyrinthian proved to be the perfect location for these studies. If any of the old stories are to be believed, Labyrinthian was much more than Shalidor's maze.

My first destination was the local tavern. Not only were I in need of something warm to eat and quench my thirst. A bed was also in order for the hour was late and the sun hung low over the horizon, ready to disappear beyond the sea. I stepped in from the moist cold and a friendly Redguard with a brightly lit face greeted me. 

"Welcome to the Moorside Inn, traveler!"

The inn was mostly vacant but I figured that not many people would go out of their way of visiting this half-sunken town deep in the marshes. I circled around the large, crackling fireplace that was placed right in the center of the room - a thing typical of most smaller inns in Skyrim - and approached the counter. 

The heat in my back dried the fabric on my body and the woman asked me what I'll be having.

"A venison stew, a warm mead, some water and a bed for the night", I said. After a few calculations, she demanded 18 Septims total. "Water's free", she said, smiling.

I paid her 20 Septims for her troubles and inquired about local rumours surrounding Labyrinthian to spark up a conversation. 

"Labyrinthian? No more than ruins on a hill if you ask me. But rumour has it a rogue mage has made it his home. I wouldn't know what anyone would want with the place, though. After the Dragon Crisis it is all but a pile of dust and debris. If there was anything valuable in there I'm sure it's been taken. Why do you ask anyway? You're not planning to go there yourself, are you?"

I shrugged and said "Oh, no, I'm just curious about local legendry is all. Besides, I heard the great Shalidor climbed the mountain and built a maze there. Is this true? How would one even get up there? All I saw on my way here was a steep incline and sharp rocks.", I replied, cleverly concealing my true motives.

"There runs an offshoot path up the mountain just south from here, marked by stone stairs and walkways at the foot of the mountain. However, I recommend not to try and reach the ancient structure. Word is it's infested with ice trolls and packs of wolves hunt on the road. The way isn't safe for travelers. A mage such as Shalidor would have no trouble, however. Mages of his kind usually fight much stronger prey. I'm sorry for prying, but you really don't intend to go there, right? I just want to make sure."

I shook my head in response. "I do not intend to visit a place  _ that _ dangerous. I'm just passing through here and thought I'd ask about the interesting landmarks of the hold before I'm on my way tomorrow." I tried my utmost to remain as inconspicuous as possible. I didn't want anyone to follow me and possibly cause trouble.

"Ah, then I'm reassured. So, where are you heading, then? Falkreath? The Rift? Can't imagine you'd like to travel to the even colder holds such as Winterhold."

I chuckled. "Well, what do you know. Winterhold is exactly where I'm headed! To study magic, of course. The hold may be rather inhospitable but I'm sure the College is all warm and cosy."

"You're probably right. Then I wish you luck at the College.", she closed. I had my meal and something to drink while the Redguard woman began to clean the counter. But most importantly, I had all the directions I needed to get to Labyrinthian. The threat of trolls and wolves did little to deter me. I would find a way to deal with these. I had a few offensive spells in my repertoire and, if I remembered correctly, trolls were seriously afraid of fire. Casting a few fireballs shouldn't be too difficult. 

I finished my meal and entered the room I rented for the night. The sun had already disappeared behind the horizon and the constellations now ruled supreme in the starry vault. A faint glimmer of Masser lit up the room that I should rest in. The bed was built of a simple wood frame and a mattress of hay in a linen sack. Draped over it, a roughly sewn blanket that would try its best to keep me warm. I made no use of the end table upon which sat an unlit candle. Likewise, the cupboard would also see no use that night as I didn't want to leave my belongings out in the open. I neatly tucked them in under the bedstead and laid myself to rest to get up early the next morning and leave before the innkeeper could notice that I'm gone.

As my weary eyes closed from the long journey I found I could open them no longer. At least not with an effort I deemed worth the trouble. So I drifted off to sleep in sweet anticipation of my goal.

Suddenly I came to and saw that I was in complete and utter darkness. I sat upright in the bed and tried to make sense of my surroundings. That, however, proved to be rather difficult for there were no discernible shapes in sight. A featureless black surrounded me like the hungry inside of a mouth. The only thing that differentiated itself from it was a faint noise way out in the distance. Like a gentle yet pressing whisper, I felt that it was calling me. Or perhaps it wasn't, it's difficult to remember this. A few very sharp, whispered sounds lined themselves up to form a familiar word I fancied I have heard before.

From the darkness, something appeared to rise that was just as shadowy. Only a humming outline of dancing air told of its presence. I had to squint to see it clearly, after which I inhaled in shock. Either the  _ thing _ was small and relatively nearby - or truly far away and monstrously large. Its many silhouettes spread across the empty space as I speculated on its size when it became clear that it must have been gargantuan, yet far enough away. 

The whispers got increasingly louder and the word they said clearer. As I strained my ears to discern what was said I also realised that I had seen the  _ thing _ before elsewhere. In the shortest unit of time imaginable, a host of thoughts poured like an uncontrollable cataract into my brain, threatening to drown it. 

Firstly, I recognised the undulating dark in the distance as the same that I came across during my interdimensional travels in the Institute of the Water's Wisdom. Moreover, the whisper had by that point reached the clarity that I needed to understand the word on a subconscious level, as no throat of neither man, mer nor beast could be able to produce that sound.  _ Fthnsthul.  _ Over and over again, this one combination of sounds to form a word no tongue knew. I remember having recorded it once only to have it resurface in my own reality as a jumbled mess of seemingly random glyphs nobody could read. But what did it mean?

Yet again I floated in this black nothingness as I had two times before. However, this time my body and spirit did not fail me and I was in complete control over my thoughts and actions. I dreamed. And it was in my dreams that  _ it  _ desired to trap me and seal me away. It never said anything to me to convey its agenda. I just knew.

Of course it was not without fear that I was made aware of my situation. I looked on in both horror and awe as the darkness that was just as dank as the jetty black abyss I was surrounded by closed in. 

Perhaps the most terrifying part was that I had no point of reference, no horizon to orient myself at and no relation as to the actual size of distances, heights and depths. This made it impossible for me to say with absolute certainty how far away the almost invisible tendril was that crept towards me. It was there that I wondered if the realm of dream is its own plane of existence and exists not purely in our heads whenever our consciousness leaves its physical containment. For if it was, I was in way greater trouble than I wanted to admit to myself.

I could not afford to panic. Even in the shadow of death I calmed myself - breathing in and out slowly to focus what magick was available to me in my state. Curiously, I found that my pool of magicka that I had control over appeared to be several times that of my waking mind. I was confused but didn't worry about the details of my nocturnal adventure too much. If it meant that I was more powerful by a few orders of magnitude - so be it.

I focused all of the magicka that I could to try and break out of the dream. It turns out that the sleep-induced paralysis one experiences in deep sleep doesn't get cured as easily as magickal paralysis. And when the elongated shadow of an evil most foul finally reached my face and almost touched the tip of my nose, I did the only sensible thing. I created a sphere of fire around myself to try and ward it off. If I couldn't escape, the least I could try is defend myself. 

I let the burning sphere around me grow in size and levitate with me off the ground. My bed was reduced to ashes in the process. I felt that all I had to do was motion with my fingers, hands and arms to create fiery appendages that lashed out at my enemy. I moved ever so slightly to steer my red hot orb to either side, to front and back. I set the ground beneath me on fire, and as it raged, I felt in control again. 

Not only my magickal potential seemed heightened - my expertise with which I would wield it did, too. From my fingertips, I let pillars of flame appear before me and the dark entity was burned. I looked down and saw the smouldering floor whereupon an idea struck my mind.  _ If there is a floor _ , I thought,  _ there might be walls and a ceiling _ . With the burning flames I could perhaps get a grasp on the spatial dimensions of where I was.

I lost no time and grew a flaming pillar as tall as I could until somewhere high above me, the flames spread out in a circle around the pillar - they collided with something solid. That must have been at least 500 pertans of height. 

I continued my assault and conjured a fire spear to either side to see if I could set any walls ablaze. And indeed, I could. About 1000 pertans to either side in distance were solid blockades that would not permit me to view what lay beyond. In the meantime, the entity that I burned a few moments ago became angry from what I could tell. It was just as if it actively tried to hold me captive where I was.

During my stay at the Institute it must've burrowed into my mind and construct these pitch black barriers around my astral shape. There was no other way it could have possibly exhibited such a level of control over my subconscious during my sleep. As such, I began to suspect that behind this cage must have been something most peculiar. 

Driven by my desire to be free from this horror, to glance past the obscuring darkness, I concentrated on gathering as much energy as my altered, astral state of being would permit and with a flash, a hot, white light emerged from my hands and torched the area. 

Everything was set ablaze while I comfortably floated inside the fire sphere. The darkness aflame, little, charred flakes of it began to rain down. An all-consuming fire raged around me and as everything collapsed, the blinding flares of the fires I created robbed me of my sight and the world ended.

XV

I awoke with a loud gasp in the center of a semicircle of people. The Redguard woman as well as four strangers stood around me with puzzled expressions on their faces. I took a few moments to get a grasp on things and as my fuzzy vision cleared up, saw that I lay on a blackened floor surrounded by charred walls and scorched interior. The furniture got reduced to ashes, however my personal belongings as well as my robe were still intact.  _ Thank the Divines my research is safe, _ I remember myself thinking. But this lasted only for but a moment before the oppressive stares of the people around me gave me a profound uneasiness. I felt I was welcome no longer.

"Headed for Winterhold, eh?", the Redguard woman groused. "Suits you right. You mages are nothing but trouble! You'd do well to leave Morthal  _ ad hoc _ , lest a dagger's point meets your throat, filthy outsider. Begone!"

I didn't get to explain myself. Truth be told I didn't even know  _ what _ I would've told her. That I had a dream in which I conjured a flaming orb around myself to battle a formless dæmon? I doubt the Morthalians would have believed me. In their eyes I was  _ one of those wizards _ who the inhabitants of Skyrim generally had no love for. Mostly because of the Nords who despised magic users, especially elves; even more so after the white gold concordat that gave elves some degree of power over Skyrim and the Nords. Outlawed Talos worship was by far not the worst consequence that emerged from this conflict. General distrust towards elves and mages in general had become common and although the amount of magic schools was uncontrollable prior to the formation of the Magistrate, people like me were scorned regardless. 

Betrayal was suddenly far more widespread than ever before. Wizards accused their own kind of being Thalmor agents and sometimes public executions were held to appease a roused townsfolk. When the Magistrate was brought into existence after the Dragon Crisis however, such practices were banned - at least on the basis of suspicion. Which was precisely the reason as to why the Redguard woman could only threaten me. But if she acted on those threats she could have been persecuted for murder. 

In following years, the Magistrate released an official pamphlet that would detail the conditions under which a person may suffer incarceration to prevent witch hunts and false accusations:

_ "Any person, Man, Mer, Beast or an otherwise equally treated representative of any given race, may not be persecuted and/or suffer incarceration; be it temporary or permanent, and the consequences associated with prolonged captivity in conditions that are customary for holding criminals of any kind, purely on the basis of assumption. _

_ Furthermore are any actions involving punishment in any form; be it a fine measured in a given amount of Septims, seizure of personal belongings, torture in both physical and mental form, banishment, execution or soul entrapment, as well as any other kind of action that is used as punishment in any given province and their respective sub-provinces in accordance with local customs, against suspects without solid and clear evidence, hereby declared illegal and liable for punishment depending on the severity of the case. _

_ As a result is any criminal activity in general, and use of magical help in committing crime especially, to be reported to the locally authoritative agencies to ensure an objective view on any possible case of lawbreaking and the stipulation of the degree of punishment.  _

_ Moreover is the act of false accusation of any wrongdoings in general, and accusation of the involvement of the accused suspect with locally problematical and/or scorned or illegal organisations and groups especially, to be punished depending on the severity of the case in accordance with local customs.  _

_ Finally is the persecution of individuals on the basis of geographical or political origin, race, gender, sexuality, outward appearance, religious affiliation*, profession**, political views***, traditions**** and other reasons not punishable by law by default in a given province and its respective sub-provinces invalid and petition for release must be provided immediately. Moreover are any official investigations against persons burdened by such impeachment to be halted and discontinued. _

_ *discerned are solely worship of the Divines and Daedric entities as a group, not singular Aedra or Daedra in particular  _

_ **provided the profession in question does not involve acts punishable by law; such professions include but are not limited to: Thieves, Bandits, Assassins, Smugglers _

_ ***unless these views include the practice of actions punishable by law  _

_ ****unless these traditions violate active law" _

This law had been put into place to control the flow of punishment in the lands and to protect the innocent from those who would seek to destroy them for one reason or another. In my case, it helped me to stay alive. The inhabitants would surely have killed me if the law wasn't on my side. But as it was, they did not even bother to put me into custody as none had witnessed what had happened. 

Nonetheless, I wasn't welcome anymore albeit I was quite confused, too. I collected my things and left, never to return again. Even if I stood under legal protection I would not risk to sleep another night at the Moorside Inn. None can be framed for murder if there are no witnesses. Moreover, I was fairly sure the innkeeper would not let me have a stay at their tavern anyway.

As I threw my bag over my shoulder that had so curiously not been charred like the entirety of the room and its furniture, I glanced at the contempt in the eyes of the townsfolk. Certainly, they must have thought I was involved in the practices of the black arts in one way or another. Not that pyromancy, no matter how advanced, could be condemned as inherently malignant. But word has it the loquacious countryfolk knows no better than to gloat, gawk and slander at the first sign of irregular behaviour or appearance. And no law can prohibit prejudice. 

However, the thing that most concerned me were not, by any stretch of the imagination, the queer geezers or my apparent lack of shelter. The greatest amount of attention rested on the riddle of my dream and what it meant. For it was quite the physical experience indeed, even if on the astral plane. I wondered if this, too, was an access point into a world we've yet to truly discover. A liminal bridge, brought about by a sleeping mind and its dreams.  _ Dreaminal Bridge _ , I mused and failed to contain a slight chuckle that visibly infuriated the onlookers that had gathered around me. I didn't blame them. They must have thought I'd gloat over the situation myself.

I knew that I had yet another task set before me. For one, I intended to travel to fabled Labyrinthian in order to study its secrets and, perhaps most importantly, find some shelter. The rations I had on my person would last me a few days so I wasn't all too concerned about starvation. Besides, from what I understood, the way to my destination wasn't too far off - not more than a day at most. However, my other task was a little more intriguing. I had to investigate my dreams.

Doing this was only possible with a roof over my head and a place to rest so it was inevitably intertwined with finding Labyrinthian and its secrets. And I had yet to find a reliable method to access my dreams in the way that I did that night in the inn. This accident occurred out of nowhere and I lacked any clear indicators of what could have brought this event about. All I had was a burnt room and hateful citizens.

The way south was a tricky path of puddles and overgrown mud with fiendishly soft earth that caused me to stumble quite a few times. The presence of deathbell was ill-boding. My knowledge of alchemy was limited but I feared the bell's toxin could find its way into the ubiquitous mist that dominated the climate. Not to mention the onslaught of insects that sought to get drunk on my blood. Before long, I exited the treacherous swamp land however, and as I could breathe again, free from the ice cold mists that hung so low in this region, an incline came into view that matched the description the Redguard woman had given me before.

At the foot of the mountain straight ahead, somewhat in the distance with a small patch of swamp land remaining betwixt it and myself, there ran an inconspicuous path marked by stone walkways and ascending stairs. At this point I should have probably worried about said stairs and whether or not they are covered in a thin layer of ice or traces of gelid water due to the icy vapours. More so should I have worried about the ice trolls that were said to inhabit the area. But my excitement for discovery got the better of me and so I went forward without a second thought.

I wasn't prepared for the diabolical smoothness of the ice sheets that covered the stairs which caused me to first lose my footing entirely before I fell  _ up the stairs _ only to slip and tumble down again to find that I had made no progress whatsoever aside from the pain from multiple, solid edges of stone. My second attempt at climbing the stairs proved to be more successful. With unsure footing, I commenced a weird dance of tremulous knees and strained feet in order to keep my balance as I slowly ascended. At this point I hypothesised that the architects of this structure must have lived in a more temperate environment because they failed to build railings on either side of the slippery stone steps.

To my delight, past a certain point the steps were traversable without the fear of sliding down or up any of them for their apparent lack of frozen liquid covering them. 

My ascent was drastically improved but halted again when I saw what I could only describe as barbaric. The ruins of Labyrinthian already came somewhat into view when beheaded troll corpses crossed my path. Pools of dried blood at their open necks and throats, their skulls impaled on pikes of wood stuck into the ground with the occasional, lit torch in between each of the rotting heads. The decomposition process was already underway so the corpses were older than a few days. The cold usually preserves bodies quite well but the spot in which I stood was unusually warm. Possibly because of the torches that formed a full circle with the disembodied heads of the dead ice trolls. This was no amateur work. The rumours were therefore true - there hid a mage of some proportion in the ruins ahead. And they knew how to defend themselves.

I suspected this to be the work of a proficient pyromancer. To ice trolls (and trolls in general), the deadliest kind of enemy. These hulking creatures are fairly easy to set ablaze and even the frostier variant suffers greatly from the heat of a crackling flame. Even if its pelt doesn't catch fire as easily as that of their plainer brethren from several hundred pertans further down the slopes in the valleys and tundras of the province. This also meant that I probably would have to deal with a destruction wizard, of whom I could only speculate they weren't hostile to me once I reached my destination. The warding circle they constructed was specifically for ice trolls and not bandits, after all.

A few minutes later and I found myself on the premises of the mysterious place we called Labyrinthian. The crumbling, frozen walls and its towering statues made for an imposing appearance. I did not yet know, but I felt that the old stories about this place were true. I couldn't quite place that emotion but it was that of familiarity mixed with some amount of certainty that this place lived up to its many legends.

There were buildings, huts of stone and roofless ruins. And there was this  _ air _ around the place that was so peculiar. I believe I've never breathed similar air again. The moment I set foot in Labyrinthian I knew that I had what I was looking for - and all the many conditions that a place must meet found themselves there a thousandfold. 

I was elated to stand in the place where the great Shalidor once stood to erect his labyrinth, where the dragon cult once dwelt to offer themselves to the Dov. But whereas most other adventurers, scholars or outlaws were looking for powerful artifacts, magickal items of importance or mighty trinkets, I was specifically looking for artifacts that  _ were _ . In the Institute I learned that, in order to be able to conduct experiments and further my studies in this unplumbed field of magick it was imperative that the location in question possessed a rich history with the majority of the place still intact. After all, a forgotten place cannot be inhabited by the zeitgeist of another time if said place doesn't exist anymore.

I was about to finally contain my sheer limitless amazement and commence studying and exploring. Chief among my earlier pursuits in Labyrinthian was it to find a robust and intact hut to stay the night in. I would surely find material to sufficiently insulate myself from the unforgiving cold, although I presaged the requisiteness of constructing a functioning door to isolate myself from the outside world and its many, many dangers. As I set out to survey the ruins of Labyrinthian I was surprised by a singular occurrence - a makeshift door bolted to one of the small houses. I stopped dead in my tracks and remembered the warding circle of deceased ice trolls on the stairs that led up to the Labyrinthian proper and realised: the mage, whoever he was, must have had the same idea and chose to, at least temporarily, inhabit the place.

At first I entertained the idea of sneaking inside the small habitat and take it for myself by murdering its owner in cold blood. Too soon did I realise I wasn't really capable of such an act and I was ill-equipped for battle. A simple dagger that was more of a last-resort-thing than a real weapon was nary a contest for an experienced destruction mage. Not that I knew how to reliably handle a blade in the first place. It was more peace of mind, really.

As I stood in the cold and thought about my situation and what to do, snowflakes gently floated down from the heavens to coat everything in a glistening white. The most immediately noticeable quality of freshly fallen snow, as is generally known, is the unmistakable crunching sound that it gives off once tread upon. And this noise precisely ripped me out of my thoughts when it suddenly appeared behind me.


	4. Chapter IV

XV

If there was a thing I always had been thoroughly bad at, notwithstanding my research into planes of existence that enabled me to utterly vanish as soon as I managed to access them, it was concealment. In conversations I was usually able to hide my plans and intentions - I was a good liar. If I wasn't, many of the students I entertained during my time would have surely gone insane. However, my greatest fault was undeniable: I had trouble not getting followed if I attracted attention. 

Whenever someone was on my trail because they suspected something frivolous in one way or another, I never managed to quite lose them. Usually due to my very own flaws in thinking, of course. I rarely ever took every little detail into account when I tried to hide myself and so, I got into trouble far more frequently than I needed to. I remember a particulately embarrassing day out on the ice fields of Northern Skyrim. I was out on an expedition (many years after I got to that snowy province for the first time) to retrieve an artifact of importance - a scroll that supposedly contained details in respect to the creation and destruction of interdimensional portals with a method that bypassed the requirement to engage in commerce with a Daedric lord. In fact, said method went over the planes of Oblivion completely and built a "tunnel" (for lack of a better word to describe the metaphysical concept I'm trying to relay here)  _ around _ Oblivion (again, simplifying the concept for easier understanding) to the desired destination. 

As you can imagine, I was very much interested in this scroll and I managed to trace it back all the way to the icy plains where only three things threatened to put a sudden halt to my ambitions: The cold, wolf packs and ice wraiths. At the time, I was well prepared for all of these. An experienced mage such as myself, who spent his first years after his education in Skyrim, knows of enough pyromancies to have an easy time scaring off predators or melting ice wraiths. Staving off the hypothermia was no trouble at all when you walked through a blizzard coated in flames.

My research to find the object led me to an inn not far from the site I traveled to but the equipment I displayed in the tavern to extrapolate the probable position of the scroll attracted some attention. I did notice a person following me shortly after I made for the ice fields and prepared myself to evade capture. When I was out of line of sight and shortly disappeared behind a small snow dune, I cast an invisibility spell (I had, by that time, learned the ways of the school of illusion) believing myself to be perfectly obscured.

Can you imagine my surprise when I got attacked regardless? 

I was invisible and undetectable even in a blizzard. But I failed to take into account the snow beneath my feet. I foolishly kept moving, so my attacker had an easy time tracing my footsteps in the snow and struck. I did fend him off in the end, however. A well-placed bolt of lightning to his chest stopped his heart and my attacker was out cold in a second. 

What this little anecdote is meant to showcase is my inability to keep possible pursuers off me. Back then it was even worse, so when I reached the ruins of Labyrinthian, a figure placed itself behind me and I only took note of them because of the unmistakable crunching sound the freshly fallen masses of snow made once stepped on. Conveniently, the sneak noticed this as well and stopped moving immediately. A familiar voice then boomed from behind my back.

"Halt, wizard!". The Redguard woman from the inn down in Morthal had followed me all the way up here. She must have seen through my masquerade that I tried to vehemently portray when I got asked about the ruins and why I demanded such specific information on the topic. Perhaps it was this - or the fact that I inadvertently burned down part of her property and now she intended to collect this debt her own way.

"You've been quite careless. And a liar to boot! I will kill you and rob your corpse to pay for the renovation of my inn."

Make no mistake, I was a wizard - just not a particularly proficient one. My defensive skills were mostly limited to simple, magickal wards that could barely defend against weak fireballs. The same kind of fireballs I was able to cast myself. But in a blizzard, they will be extinguished. I had no defensive spells in store that could save me from physical harm. As such, the iron dagger in the woman's hand was seriously threatening to me. 

My specialty was theoretical and metaphysical magick for ethereal concepts and bridging gaps through, and in, space. It wasn't offensive magick or anything of the sort. And I want to emphasise that I made an effort to repel the female attacker but my meek flames were easily deflected and in but a few snow-crunching steps, I was held at dagger's point. The blood in my arteries froze and I felt as much fear as I felt when I got chased by the hungers in the depths of the Institute. The Redguard woman didn't demur and the cold blade burrowed itself into my throat. She was fairly quick to retrieve it and I felt the hot blood pour like heavy rain over me. My robe was stained with crimson and the iron stench would have had me gagging or even vomiting if not for the dyspnoea I experienced as a result of my grievous injuries.

Red snow beneath my feet. An icy cold ran through my brain. Naked fear gripped my heart as the black vignette around my vision grew. For a moment, a split second, I stood at the very precipice of oblivion. The realm between life and death, the moment just before the soul leaves the body but not quite. Time seemed to stop in this instance and within this most glacial of planes, I could see a strange space of crystalline structures superimposed on the reality I was being ripped from. A faint glimmer of purple in the corner of my eye snuck around the inner edge of the all-consuming vignette.

I remember my near death experience well for two reasons. Firstly: because I almost died. Secondly, however, because I experienced it twice. The first time, I felt the sensation of approaching death's door as one normally would with a slit throat (provided you possess any solid means of somehow experiencing this without dying). But just as I could see the vitreous spires take hold in my reality, writhing and winding themselves into my field of view to erase all traces of the normal world I used to know, time seemed to run backwards and I experienced the entire ordeal again - only in reverse.

The crystal structures vanished from sight, the purple light faded, the darkening outline around my field of vision began to clear up. I witnessed as my blood rose up from the stained snow in a queer, upwardly rain and comfortably nestled itself back into my arteries. The iron blade exited my flesh and healed it on its way out. Time resumed its normal course as the Redguard woman stood before me again. 

Her utterly devastated expression was absolutely priceless. "What sorcery is this?!", I remember her screaming. She was outraged because she didn't understand what had happened. I, on the other hand, knew exactly what I just bore witness to. For I was educated in the field of obscure arcane sciences and could tell that this was the work of a very skilled chronomancer. 

The innkeeper was still utterly shaken in light of the most recent developments, namely, the reversal of time for both me and her and everything that had to do with my murder. The care with which the two of us were put back in our original starting positions was remarkable. Even for an experienced chronomancer, quite a feat to accomplish without endangering local time and space. 

The woman and I stood just past the entrance to Labyrinthian. I already looked for the mage in question who had gone into hiding no doubt while the Redguard was too busy making sense of it all. She probably didn't know chronomancy existed. Truth be told I believe she was more surprised at how well I've taken the situation than at what had happened to her. I turned my head to examine my surroundings when I heard the floor crack and then crash noisily. I looked back at the woman whose expression looked even more aghast than before.

A quick look to her feet and her neck revealed that out of nowhere, a gigantic ice spike must've shot right out of the ground. It impaled her, bored itself through her abdomen, piercing the heart and and lungs, punctuating the right carotid artery. For a few seconds, her body hung there, suspended in the air, squirming just a little bit while the hot blood started to melt the magickally conjured ice. Just then, somewhat of a see-through, blurry bubble formed around her. I could only tell by the undulating outline of it. And inside that field, time slowly began to halt. Even the snow flakes hovered without ever touching anything. Thereafter, I bore witness to a most grotesque spectacle. 

Time rewound, the ice spike retracted and became one with the gelid floor again. Pure fear manifested itself as time was moved forward again and the ginormous ice spike impaled her another time. The splattering blood scattered about just as before, paused in the air, and the ordeal was undone once more. Meanwhile, her mental condition worsened as she got impaled again and again, repeatedly thrown to the front of death's door to eternally dangle over the pit. Continously at the very edge of existence. 

I stopped counting past a certain point but after a while, the torture ceased and the time bubble burst, leaving a thoroughly harrowed and perturbed female quivering in the snow. She stood there in fright for a moment and fled the premises shortly after, too terrified to scream. 

I, on the other hand, waited expectantly for the time fiend to reveal themselves. I had a mission and whoever reversed my deathly fate surely had a good reason to spare me. I told myself that I had nothing to fear for the wizard had left me alive despite his might. Perhaps a foolish mechanism to deny the true gravity of the situation, the sheer and utter hopelessness of being at the mercy of someone many orders of magnitude more powerful than oneself. But there was no way out regardless and it was more shock and mental paralysis that kept me from running away screaming. And, of course, my experiences with beings of some other purport. Besides, I had nowhere else to go. The people in Morthal would probably by dusk believe I was a vile warlock of immeasurable power, psychotic and mentally rotten. Worse, they'll perhaps even grab their pitchforks and torches to come look for me. At least, that's what I thought. Needless to say, never did anyone speak to me of that occurrence after that day.

But I still needed to know who it was that I was dealing with.

XVI

Chronomancy, the art of magickally influencing the flow and the effects of time, is one of the rarest kinds of magick in existence. It is also one of the sub-schools of magick that doesn't get taught - partly because teaching chronomancy is outlawed by the Magistrate but mostly because there don't exist any teachers since the last known users of chronomancy were the Dov and their priests way back when Labyrinthian was a city of dragon worshippers. There is a total of four magickal schools and sub-schools that the Magistrate declared illegal as a result of scientific research that indicated a terribly high threat potential from them. In an official document, it says:

_ "By order of the Magistrate: _

_ For their inherent dangers to the people and society as a whole, are the following four schools and sub-schools of magic declared illegal practices and possession, acquisition as well as distribution of knowledge, in written or spoken form, hereby declared forbidden and punishable by law: _

  * _Necromancy; the art of raising the dead, includes, but is not limited to:_


  * raising fully or partly decomposed corpses and/or skeletons, mummies or other, bodily expired entities as a work force, for protection, experimentation or other purposes 


  * conjuring ghosts, wraiths or any other undead and/or ectoplasmic entity for any purpose at all



_ Excluded is the traditional practice of Dunmeri ancestral worship that requires communion with deceased kin and/or relatives through conjuration _

  * _vampirism; the act of becoming a vampire (i.e. contracting porphyric hæmophilia on purpose or accident and/or failing to initiate countermeasures in time before the transformation completes) and acting in accordance to or with vampiric behaviour (i.e. drinking blood which results in less than one casualties (theft and personal injury) or more than zero casualties (murder) as well as the use of any vampiric, magical powers such as Life Drain among others)_


  * lichdom; the act of becoming a lich and using necromantic, magical powers


  * the performance of outlawed, black rituals such as the Black Sacrament, rituals to achieve lichdom, voluntary infection with porphyric hæmophilia, the Necromancer's Moon ritual as well as other rites that stand in direct or indirect connexion to, or require practices of, necromancy


  * the extraction and transfer of black souls via soul trapping and/or murder with an accordingly enchanted weapon and the resulting capture of black souls and their energy within black soul gems as well as the destruction of black souls via use in enchanting rituals and replenishment of magical energy of an enchanted or otherwise magically charged item


  * the creation and manufacture of black soul gems (via the outlawed necromancer's moon ritual or otherwise) as well as their distribution and use


  * the use, acquisition, possession or distribution of necromantically relevant artifacts such as the Necromancer's Amulet, the Black Star, the Staff of Worms or others, and the concealment thereof from authoritative agencies including the Magistrate, the local Mage's Guild or an analogous institution and the local, governmental representatives 



  * _Hæmomancy; the art of manipulating blood and its contents through magic, includes, but is not limited to:_


  * the infliction or botening of injuries using hæmomantic practices


  * the extraction of blood of any man, mer or an equally treated representative of any given race in part (theft) or in full (murder) and its manipulation, use or distribution 


  * vampirism; especially the contraction and spreading of porphyric hæmophilia; other prohibitions apply (see "vampirism" under "Necromancy")


  * the creation, possession, distribution or use of artifacts or items created for or with hæmomancy, such as bloodcursed arrows, tainted skooma, the Bloodstone Chalice, the Rings of Blood Magic, blood seals, blood runes and others of either vampiric, Daedric or Nirnic origin and concealment thereof from authoritative agencies including the Magistrate, the local Mage's Guild or an analogous institution and the local, governmental representatives


  * the commissioning and use of structures designed to aid in hæmomantic practices such as bloodforges, bloodsprings, blood fountains and others of either vampiric, Daedric or Nirnic origin and concealment thereof from authoritative agencies including the Magistrate, the local Mage's Guild or an analogous institution and the local governmental representatives 


  * communion and/or commerce with deific entities, Daedric or otherwise, that require blood sacrifice or other rituals that require the use of blood in some capacity and/or stand in direct connexion to hæmomancy or vampirism 


  * the creation and keeping of entities of any form through the use of blood and blood magic



  * _Animancy; the art of transmogrifying oneself into a beast, animal or other creature, includes, but is not limited to:_


  * transformation into elk, deer, rabbits or other prey animal, also in context of local wildlife 


  * transformation into sabre cats, lions, wolves or other predatory animals, also in context of local wildlife 


  * transformation into insects, vermin or other inconspicuous pests


  * transformation into magical, Daedric or otherwise legendary creatures and beasts


  * lycanthropy; the act of becoming a lycanthrope as well as the act of transformation into a werewolf (extends to werebears and other such creatures)


  * taking actions to confuse, deceive or harm a person while transformed


  * taking actions to steal, damage or alter private and public property in any way, shape or form while transformed



  * _Chronomancy; the art of manipulating the flow and behaviour of time, includes, but is not limited to:_


  * changing the directional flow of time, either forwards or backwards, outside the wielder, even in miniscule amounts


  * manipulating single individuals or groups of individuals forwards or backwards in time, even in miniscule amounts


  * manipulating oneself or others to be faster or slower, manipulating corporeal age or speed of the metabolism


  * traveling forwards or backwards in time, includes traveling to other eras


  * stopping time


  * manipulating the time and age of specific objects, areas, creatures or items, includes plant life


  * acquisition, possession and distribution of knowledge in respect to chronomancy techniques, artifacts or items of importance and concealment thereof from authoritative agencies including the Magistrate, the local Mage's Guild or an analogous institution and the local, governmental representatives



_ Any violations will be punished depending on the severity of the case and in accordance with local customs and usual, jurisdictional modus operandi. Furthermore are any violators to be reported to either the Magistrate, the local Mage's Guild or an analogous institution or the local authoritative agencies. Failure to report suspicious activity and/or the act of hiding suspects and violators will be punished." _

With all the prohibitions in place it's a miracle that I can practice freely, although I'd wager it's only a matter of time until I'll get in trouble for crossing gaps in between dimensions. Curiously, they never added tonal architecture, or "Kagromancy", as I call it, to that list. Probably because there's no one left alive who knows how this magic works. Not that they know of, at least.

However, what the document above says is that chronomancy is outlawed - mostly because it isn't well understood (otherwise the Magistrate would have listed a few more problem-causing side effects to chronomancy such as ripping and tearing of the space around the caster should they travel forwards or backwards in time and a resulting, temporary, spatial instability that could lead to a reality collapse in an area of about 1.000 square pertans if left unchecked. This could then lead to a liminal space that acts as a portal between way too many planes of existence, endangering the world at large (I also theorise that this is what happened to Winterhold)).

It is also outlawed because the little of it that is indeed understood is incredibly dangerous in the wrong hands. Magic that could mock Akatosh himself if one were to transcend Munduoic boundaries of traditional magick is not to be trifled with.

Also of note is that the Magistrate failed to include the Psijic order of monks as an exception to practitioners of chronomancy. They either didn't know the Psijics could do that or they chose to purposely exclude them so that the general public doesn't know they can cast chronomancy. But I was engaged in experiencing chronomancy first hand up at Labyrinthian. And as any chronomancer knows, it doesn't matter if the art is frowned upon because you can undo most things for nobody to notice you even cast a spell. My point, however, is that the Redguard woman and I happened upon a particularly adept mage who knows his craft well. So well, in fact, it could only be called extraordinary - even for chronomancer standards.

"You are more mentally resilient than I thought.", an elderly voice behind me said. I turned around but there was nobody there. In fact, it seemed as if that voice had been but a delusion for there were no footprints in the snow at all. Then, from further off the same voice boomed: "You are brave to have witnessed such an atrocity and stay. You must need something of this place". A silhouette stood by the house with the makeshift door that I noticed earlier. Its shape suggested a long, hooded robe of some kind but before I could take a closer look it was gone yet again, leaving no trace of itself. 

"I sense a strong will.", the old wizard then said from a place I couldn't locate - it was as if it came from all directions at once. "And the research you carry might be of use to me."

Out of nowhere appeared before me an old wizard. He just, well, materialised, "popped" into existence all at once right in front of my face. He was clad in an opulent, embellished grey and brown robe. The oversized belt buckle shewed a strange emblem I didn't recognise. However, the ornately decorated lower part of the robe told of high status and wealth. His wrinkled face made a stern expression which in turn enabled his well kempt, full beard to be in perfect condition for public presentation. The large hood hid his hair but a part of me suspected a respectable mane lay beneath that cover. Perhaps the most noticeable feature was his staff. An impaled, horned animal skull sitting on top of what looks like a very finely cut gem. A staff unlike any other I've seen. So unique one could almost suspect it be of Daedric origin, perhaps an artifact of grandiose value and might.

"You're in luck. In my experience, great minds are easier to work with when alive and your research suggests that I need your expertise in a very special field of magick". He motioned towards the small house I espied earlier. "Please, go inside so we might discuss. I believe we can further each other's goals", he then said and beckoned me to go. I didn't really possess any other options aside from infallible compliance towards my unexpected host if I intended to stay alive and live to tell the tale. Once inside, the warm crackle of a lit fireplace welcomed me and my strained nerves began to relax somewhat. I took a seat by the comfortably radiating fire and watched my host pick a seat for himself as well.

He had a bronze pot sitting above the flames, gently rattling with something cooking inside. "Venison stew", he told me, lifting the hot lid to release a pleasantly smelling steam from the pot into the air. It smelled of tasty meat and promised ample succour to nurture my aching body. And as we had ourselves a bowl of hot soup, the mage went into detail about his endeavour. 

"You've no doubt seen my talent as a chronomancer, I presume. It is a craft I've learned to harness and control only recently. If the time span I am talking about can be called that, at least. I've returned to Skyrim in hopes of finding a long lost abode of mine, believing chronomancy to be the answer. It is my burden to retrieve something but in order to do that I need to go back in time." He paused for a moment to breathe a few, deep breaths.

"It turned out that it wasn't this simple, however. A Daedric lord has stolen from me a most prized possession, a fortress, and inside lies something of importance to me. But with your research and knowledge we can reach it."

The old wizard must have noticed my partly confused face as he told me this. He sighed and resigned to clearer explanations so that I might support him in this undertaking.

"I need to invade a fortress within the clutches of a rather unwelcoming lord of Oblivion. I had hoped to find answers here, in the old labyrinth, but nothing is left." And suddenly, I knew what he would need me for.

Traveling past the obscurity that is the veil between the Mundus and Oblivion - or any other external place - requires tremendous effort. To even hope to land  _ somewhere _ in the lands of the immortal demons that are the Daedra, one needs to follow precise instructions with difficult steps to accomplish in between. And this wizard wanted me to find a way into a Daedric fortress, from what I understood, that was in Oblivion proper. But without all the hassle surrounding the acquisition of rare items and commerce with a Daedric Prince or architectural undertakings that a normal citizen doesn't have the funds for. 

"You don't really have anything to bargain with so unless you help me I'm afraid I can't let you go. And believe me when I tell you that we have all the time in the world." A light snicker escaped his brittle lips. "But don't tell Akatosh", he then whispered quizzaciously. 

I had no choice but to help him in his quest. This was an excellent opportunity to demonstrate my mastery of the obscure arcana, however. And so I acquiesced and got to work. The old man had already, with his time-altering powers, spied into my documents and notes and had a vague idea what kind of magick I sought to invoke and how to provoke the effects to happen. "Based on your notes", he said, "Labyrinthian is the perfect location to experiment with these dimensional shifts that you described in your hypotheses. We are above magickally soaked soil and the shadows of the past dwell in here. I know this for a few reasons. But now, we need to devise a method on creating a fissure in space through which we can access a specific plane of Oblivion directly. Can you arrange this?"

I didn't know. By the Divines, I barely knew enough about that phenomenon to call it forth at will in specific places with a few conditions met to a large enough scale as to be noticeable. But in my head I was already hard at work to imagine what would happen to such a fissure if we could apply chronomancy to it. Could we change the fissure's contents? The time that it contained?

"That's impossible to say but I have a few theoretical ideas on how we could make this work" I proclaimed and lost myself thereafter in wild scribblings of letters, glyphs, equations. I knew that the old wizard was playing with the thought of quickening my thoughts and writing artificially through his time magick but something stopped him from doing that. He was probably aware of the side effects of this technique.

Instead, he did the opposite of what I expected of him.

"You should rest your thoughts for today. There's a crude bed in the other room where you can lie down. If you need to, you can brood over your theories there. As I said, I have all the time in the world."

I thanked the old wizard and promised to go to sleep whence he had pointed me to as soon as I felt it was time. 

That evening I was largely left alone by him so that I was free to sit in the room with the desk and read, write, think. I didn't have any auxiliary structure like a large school to support my efforts if I made a mistake. I didn't even have a real home. Instead, I was at the whim of a man who probably had the power of wiping out entire villages looking to burglarise a Daedric prince's lot. And I was his accomplice in a crime I couldn't possibly know the ramifications of.

I sought to eliminate the seething disquiet in my mind by burying myself under my papers and writing utensils. For a time, I even managed to stave off the fatigue that plagued me.

But soon enough my eyelids grew heavier and heavier until, at last, they seemed sealed shut with no way to open them ever again.

XVII

There was this ill wind I heard when next I opened my eyes with considerably less effort than before. A shortness of breath came over me as I breathed in stale, humid air unfit for breathing. Swept away by panic I turned and twisted in the darkness, yet again imprisoned in the impenetrable void that threatened to consume last night's dream. I felt around me and realised soon, however, that I was in a small, enclosed space made of a coarse stone material as opposed to the great room that had entertained me before. The small space was only marginally bigger in size than I. But whatever I undertook, from pushing the ceiling to hammering my fists in the sides, nothing would permit me freedom. Soon enough I kicked the end of my containment with my feet to discover that I could make that container move forward. And each kick brought me closer to my goal of escape. 

I kept kicking and moving until I was levitating for a moment. Then came the landing. I crashed down onto a rocky floor. Parts of the coffin that held me captive would slide away whereas others kept still as a testament to my freedom. I lifted my head in response to the change of scenery and found myself in a man-made cave of sorts. Or a crypt. And the container I escaped out of was no ordinary coffin but nothing less than a rock-hewn sarcophagus with finely cut features that resembled me so perfectly that an ice cold breath ran down my spine as soon as I beheld it. The lid was still largely intact so I could spy with what intricate detail the mason in question had woven the stone so that I got the impression that, whoever did this, knew me a lot better than I knew them. Or myself. 

I strained my stiff muscles, feeling as if I hadn't moved them in years, and pushed myself up until I stood on my own two feet again. To my surprise the average temperature in that chamber was about half that of a normal human body and I failed to notice the familiar scent of burning candles and fresh snow. I wasn't in Labyrinthian anymore. My inquest as to the nature of my current accommodation commenced at once.

My ghastly prison must have fallen from somewhere, I thought, so instinctively, I turned and let my gaze wander about the place. To my astonishment I beheld a great, cyclopean wall that stretched upwards and to either side farther than my eyes could see. At its outermost edges, a damp darkness obscured it. But what lay in my field of view, the one fraction of the wall that I was permitted to see, unsettled me deeply. Rows upon rows of indentations in the wall, mostly filled with sarcophagi of the same ilk as the one of my own, presented themselves to me. I attempted to make out the features of some of them but ultimately failed to procure a hint at the probable contents of the great coffins. Perhaps, I thought, this was for the better.

I turned again and saw a seamless dark loom before me. I had no clue as to where I was but the cogitation quickly struck me that this might be a dream. I remembered having fallen asleep in the old wizard's dwelling. So vividly in fact, it was as if I was still there. Yet, I found myself in an alien place so unlike all that I've read about the plains of Oblivion. The longer I pondered my actual whereabouts the more… torn I felt. My soul was stretching longer and longer so that I experienced utmost discomfort and concern. The sensation is impossible to describe to those who haven't felt it before. 

I fought against it and tried to concentrate myself. I needed to discover what place lay before me and I could not afford such distractions. 

The less I thought about my soul being ripped apart, the less uncomfortable I was. So I made my first steps into this wholly unfamiliar land of darkness and stone, wondering how I should return. 

My steps produced no echo in spite of my initial assumption to have been sent into a cave. Immediately I got reminded of my delvings into the Institute's depths but the air was different. Less gelid and stale, instead of such neutral quality to be unremarkable to an extent at which it becomes curious. I barely noticed I was breathing at all and as soon as I went away from the wall of the coffins, the temperature ceased to exist, exhibiting no force upon my body. If a corporeal form it truly was, for I wasn't sure what part of me wandered this neutral void.

For the most part, excluding the great wall and seemingly infinite floor, the area was devoid of structures based on my preliminary findings. It was also devoid of living organisms or anything else besides an abundance of shadow. There was some light there which allowed me to view my feet and the ground they stood upon but its source I was unable to pinpoint.

An empty world, hidden from sight. I still thought that this was a strange dream, then. A sudden flash of light disturbed the silence and my eyes followed a white wisp fly its course somewhere. It dissipated shortly thereafter and left no trace of itself. I chose to wander continuously in the direction of the wisp's flight path in hopes of some greater discovery.

After a while, a shape rose from the ubiquitous shadows. Upon closer inspection, it appeared to be a smoothly arching bridge with a few segments missing in between. But not for decay - by design. From its looks it was constructed from the same material as the stone floor to my feet. However, the ground's composition changed into a light brown hue of freshly dug up earth, if incredibly dry.

Another flash of light, several times faster than the first wisp, cut through the stillness. This beam of energy brought noise for the fraction of a second. I closed some distance and stood at the precipice of the bridge. It was here that a few more flashes of light occurred. More and more beams could be seen but their pace was slow. I went against my better judgment and began to cross the bridge.

The gaps in between the floating parts of it could be crossed by jumping. I wasn't particularly athletic or acrobatic but I was somehow lighter than in the real world and jumps were easier. During that time, several beams of light passed through me as they appeared and disappeared above the bridge. 

As I left the structure, nothing changed at first. Another wasteland of nothing stretched before me. As I looked over the empty plains, I felt a slight tug at the back of my head. I didn't know what it was but it intruded upon my experience suddenly and harshly. And then there it was again, the sensation of a beginning separation of body and soul. I quelled the feeling as best I could and tried to concentrate myself on something else. But there was nothing to catch my attention, dooming me to walk in inner contention for the time being.

That was until I saw the monolith.

Off in the distance there loomed a horizon-devouring, megalithic yet finely cut and angularly shaped pillar of phantastical scale. Its outer walls were traversed by solemn, magickal veins and arteries upon its smooth, black surface. I was unable to view what sat at the top, for it stretched too high into the featureless sky to see it. All I saw was a tremendous glow where I speculated its top to be. The magic veins and arteries that ran across its impossibly smooth surface were pulsating and radiating their energy off of the gargantuan object into the empty air around it. I could only wonder at what this was or what it's purpose could be. But I needed to reach it. As far as the eye could see there was nothing and in the middle of it all there was this… thing.

As I made my way towards the object of my pursuit I began to notice all too quickly just how far away it must've been and, by extension, how mockingly large. No matter how far I traveled, it appeared I never got closer to the structure. It was always out of reach as part of the scenery but it never appeared as if it could be reached. It simply didn't want me to. In time I came to the conclusion that it was so large that a good portion of it was still waiting for discovery  _ behind _ the horizon as I saw a few lights suddenly appear on it that weren't there before when I moved in its direction. The sheer size it must have had dwarfs my mind to this day. I cannot grasp its true dimensions, nor can I ever hope to one day have the strength of mind to understand it. And during those moments its magnitude frightened me deeply. It still does.

Moments later, I felt that annoying tugging again.

I awoke, shocked and confused, in the seat that I have taken prior to my nap. My face was warm and probably also slightly red from the continuous pressure the many books and papers had exhibited upon my cheek. I shoved away the documents and massaged my throbbing forehead. Still not truly able to handle the most recent delusions, my mind was slow to accommodate for the sudden change of place. It felt as if it took a few moments for my soul to go from an agitated state into its usual resting position, if this particular, metamedical phenomenon can be described as such.

A familiar voice behind me welcomed me back to the land of the living and the awake.

"Where have you been to, hm? Are we a little sleepyhead, yes? Perhaps you should rest in a bed and shut down that infernal thought machine of yours. Sleeping on science doesn't get any problems solved, after all. I have limitless time at my disposal and as long as we're working together, so do you. Just tell me this: Did you, by any chance, encounter any strange dreams?"

I thought it quite odd that the wizard, whose name I had yet to learn, would ask me this specific question, had I the most intense, incorporeal experience behind me mere moments ago, yes, still recovering from it, even. "Indeed", I remember replying, "I had a queer voyage into the lands of slumber. I awoke in a broken coffin within a place of darkness with nothing in it besides flashes of light, a bridge or arch whereupon aforementioned flashes would gather and a giant, inaccessible structure far, far off in the distance. With black sky and anthracite floor made from rock. It was a silent place with no remarkablefeatures to speak of. A blank world, so to speak.". 

This answer appeared to be satisfactory to the old man albeit he came off as profoundly cognizant of certain facts I may lack the knowledge of. Something stirred inside him but he would not show it neither tell of any significant details that held some importance to him.

"A strange occurrence indeed. Come, we should head to your quarters for the night. It's already quite late in the evening and I firmly believe that you need a break from all of your papers and notes. It was a busy day for you as well, after all."

He gently patted me on the shoulder and together, we went through his surprisingly large hut, past a stove and a desk and into a small bedroom, no more than a slightly bigger hole in the wall that provided enough space to fit a bed inside. 

I laid down upon the cloth and the wizard turned to leave.

"I'm terribly sorry for my manners", I interrupted him, "but I believe I failed to properly introduce myself. Now that we are working together I deem it appropriate to tell you who I am. My name is Robert Gautier and I studied at the Institute of the Water's Wisdom. And you are…?"

The wizard stopped, turned his head and said:

"Shalidor".


End file.
